Mr. Opp
Copyright© 2024 by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
Chapter 9
The next day dawned wet and chilly. A fine mist hung in the trees, and the leaves and grasses sagged under their burden of moisture. All the crimson and gold had changed to brown and gray, and the birds and crickets had evidently packed away their chirps and retired for the season.
By the light of a flickering candle, Mr. D. Webster Opp partook of a frugal breakfast. The luxurious habits of the Moore household had made breakfast a movable feast depending upon the time of Aunt Tish’s arrival, and in establishing the new régime Mr. Opp had found it necessary to prepare his own breakfast in order to make sure of getting to the office before noon.
As he sipped his warmed-over coffee, with his elbows on the red table-cloth, and his heels hooked on the rung of the chair, he recited to himself in an undertone from a very large and imposing book which was propped in front of him, the leaves held back on one side by a candlestick and on the other by a salt-cellar. It was a book which Mr. Opp was buying on subscription, and it was called “An Encyclopedia of Wonder, Beauty, and Wisdom.” It contained pellets of information on all subjects, and Mr. Opp made it a practice to take several before breakfast, and to repeat the dose at each meal as circumstances permitted. “An editor,” he told Nick, “has got to keep himself instructed on all subjects. He has got to read wide and continuous.”
As a rule he followed no special line in his pursuit of knowledge, but with true catholicity of taste, took the items as they came, turning from a strenuous round with “Abbeys and Abbots,” to enter with fervor into the wilds of “Abyssinia.” The straw which served as bookmark pointed to-day to “Ants,” and ordinarily Mr. Opp would have attacked the subject with all the enthusiasm of an entomologist. But even the best regulated minds will at times play truant, and Mr. Opp’s had taken a flying leap and skipped six hundred and thirty-two pages, landing recklessly in the middle of “Young Lochinvar.” For the encyclopedia, in its laudable endeavor not only to cover all intellectual requirements, but also to add the crowning grace of culture, had appended a collection of poems under the title “Favorites, Old and New.”
Mr. Opp, thus a-wing on the winds of poesy, had sipped his tepid coffee and nibbled his burnt toast in fine abstraction until he came upon a selection which his soul recognized. He had found words to the music that was ringing in his heart. It was then that he propped the book open before him, and determined not to close it until he had made the lines his own.
Later, as he trudged along the road to town, he repeated the verses to himself, patiently referring again and again to the note-book in which he had copied the first words of each line.
At the office door he regretfully dismounted from Pegasus, and resolutely turned his attention to the business of the day. His desire was to complete the week’s work by noon, spend the afternoon at home in necessary preparation for the coming guest, and have the following day, which was Saturday, free to devote to the interest of the oil company.
In order to accomplish this, expedition was necessary, and Mr. Opp, being more bountifully endowed by nature with energy than with any other quality, fell to work with a will. His zeal, however, interfered with his progress, and he found himself in the embarrassing condition of a machine which is geared too high.
He was, moreover, a bit bruised and stiff from the unusual performances of the previous day, and any sudden motion caused him to wince. But the pain brought recollection, and recollection was instant balm.
It was hardly to be expected that things would deviate from their usual custom of becoming involved at a critical time, so Mr. Opp was not surprised when Nick was late and had to be spoken to, a task which the editor always achieved with great difficulty. Then the printing-press had an acute attack of indigestion, and no sooner was that relieved than the appalling discovery was made that there were no more good “S’s” in the type drawer.
“Use dollar-marks for the next issue,” directed Mr. Opp, “and I’ll wire immediate to the city.”
“We’re kinder short on ‘I’s’ too,” said Nick. “You take so many in your articles.”
Mr. Opp looked injured. “I very seldom or never begin on an ‘I,’” he said indignantly.
“You get ‘em in somehow,” said Nick. “Why, the editor over at Coreyville even said ‘Our Wife.’”
“Yes,” said Mr. Opp, “I will, too, —that is—er—”
The telephone-bell covered his retreat.
“Hello!” he answered in a deep, incisive voice to counteract the effect of his recent embarrassment, “Office of ‘The Opp Eagle.’ Mr. Toddlinger? Yes, sir. You say you want your subscription stopped! Well, now, wait a minute—see here, I can explain that—” but the other party had evidently rung off.
Mr. Opp turned with exasperation upon Nick:
“Do you know what you went and did last week?” He rose and, going to the file, consulted the top paper. “There it is,” he said, “just identical with what he asserted.”
Nick followed the accusing finger and read:
“Mr. and Mrs. Toddlinger moved this week into their new horse and lot.”
Before explanations could be entered into, there was a knock at the door. When it was answered, a very small black boy was discovered standing on the step. He wore a red shirt and a pair of ragged trousers, between which strained relations existed, and on his head was the brim of a hat from which the crown had long since departed. Hanging on a twine string about his neck was a large onion.
He opened negotiations at once.
“Old Miss says fer you-all to stop dat frowin’ papers an’ sech like trash outen de winder; dey blows over in our-all’s yard.”
He delivered the message in the same belligerent spirit with which it had evidently been conveyed to him, and rolled his eyes at Mr. Opp as if the offense had been personal.
Mr. Opp drew him in, and closed the door. “Did—er—did Mrs. Gusty send you over to say that?” he asked anxiously.
“Yas, sir; she done havin’ a mad spell. What’s dat dere machine fer?”
“It’s a printing-press. Do you think Mrs. Gusty is mad at me?”
“Yas, sir,” emphatically; “she’s mad at ever’body. She ‘lows she gwine lick me ef I don’t tek keer. She done got de kitchen so full o’ switches hit looks jes lak outdoors.”
“I don’t think she would really whip you,” said Mr. Opp, already feeling the family responsibility.
“Naw, sir; she jes ‘low she gwine to. What’s in dem dere little drawers?”
“Type,” said Mr. Opp. “You go back and tell Mrs. Gusty that Mr. Opp says he’s very sorry to have caused her any inconvenience, and he’ll send over immediate and pick up them papers.”
“You’s kinder skeered of her, too, ain’t you?” grinned the ambassador, holding up one bare, black foot to the stove. “My mammy she sasses back, but I runs.”
“Well, you’d better run now,” said Mr. Opp, who resented such insight; “but, see here, what’s that onion for?”
“To ‘sorb disease,” said the youth, with the air of one who is promulgating some advanced theory in therapeutics; “hit ketches it ‘stid of you. My pappy weared a’ onion fer put-near a whole year, an’ hit ‘sorbed all de diseases whut was hangin’ round, an’ nary a one never teched him. An’ one day my pappy he got hongry, an’ he et dat dere onion, an’ whut you reckon? He up an’ died!”
“Well, you go ‘long now,” said Mr. Opp, “and tell Mrs. Gusty just exactly verbatim what I told you. What did you say was your name?”
“Val,” said the boy.
Mr. Opp managed to slip a nickel into the dirty little hand without Nick’s seeing him. Nick was rather firm about these things, and disapproved heartily of Mr. Opp’s indiscriminate charities.
“Gimme nudder one an’ I’ll tell you de rest ob it,” whispered Val on the door-step.
Mr. Opp complied.
“Valentine Day Johnson,” he announced with pride; then pocketing his prize, he vanished around the corner of the house, forgetting his office of plenipotentiary in his sudden accession of wealth.
Once more peace settled on the office, and Mr. Opp was engrossed in an article on “The Greatest Petroleum Proposition South of the Mason and Dixon Line,” when an ominous, wheezing cough announced the arrival of Mr. Tucker. This was an unexpected catastrophe, for Mr. Tucker’s day for spending the morning at the office was Saturday, when he came in to pay for his paper. It seemed rather an unkind trick of Fate’s that he should have been permitted to arrive a day too soon.
The old gentleman drew up a chair to the stove, then deliberately removed his overcoat and gloves.
It was when he took off his overshoes, however, that Mr. Opp and Nick exchanged looks of despair. They had a signal code which they habitually employed when storms swept the office, but in a calm like this they were powerless.
“Mighty sorry to hear about that uprisin’ in Guatemala,” said Mr. Tucker, who took a vivid interest in foreign affairs, but remained quite neutral about questions at home.
Mr. Opp moved about the office restlessly, knowing from experience that to sit down in the presence of Mr. Tucker was fatal. The only chance of escape lay in motion. He sharpened his pencils, straightened his desk, and tied up two bundles of papers while Mr. Tucker’s address on the probable future of the Central American republics continued. Then Mr. Opp was driven to extreme measures. He sent himself a telegram. This ruse was occasionally resorted to, to free the office from unwelcome visitors without offending them, and served incidentally to produce an effect which was not unpleasant to the editor.
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