Mr. Opp

								

other side.
Mrs. Fallows, whose architectural effects were strictly perpendicular,
cast a perpetual shadow of disapproval over the life partner whom it had
pleased Providence to bestow upon her. Jimmy was a born satirist; he
knew things are not what they seem, and he wickedly rejoiced thereat. To
his literal, pious-minded wife he at times seemed the incarnation of
wickedness.
Sweeping with dignity beneath the arching sign of Your Hotel, she took
her seat upon the porch, and, disposing her sable robes about her,
folded her mitted hands, and waited to see the people return from the
funeral.
Jimmy, with the uncertain expression of one who is ready to apologize,
but cannot remember the offense, hovered about uneasily, casting
tempting bits of conversational bait into the silence, but failing to
attract so much as a nibble of attention.
"Miss Jemima Fenny was over to the funeral from Birdtown. Miss Jim is
one of 'em, ain't she?"
There was no response.
"Had her brother Nick with her. He's just gettin' over typhoid fever;
looks about the size and color of a slate pencil. I bet, in spite of
Miss Jim's fine clothes, they ain't had a square meal for a month.
That's because she kept him at school so long when he orter been at
work. He did git a job in a newspaper office over at Coreyville not
long 'fore he was took sick. They tell me he's as slick as a onion about
newspaper work."
Continued silence; but Jimmy boldly cast another fly:
"Last funeral we had was Mrs. Tucker's, wasn't it? Old man Tucker was
there to-day. Crape band on his hat is climbin' up; it'll be at high
mast ag'in soon."
Dense, nerve-racking silence; but Jimmy made one more effort:
"The Opps are coming back here to-night to talk things over before Ben
goes on to Missouri. He counts on ketchin' the night boat. It won't give
him much time, will it?"
But Mrs. Fallows, unrelaxed, stared fixedly before her; she had taken
refuge in that most trying of all rejoinders, silence, and the fallible
Jimmy, who waxed strong and prospered upon abuse, drooped and languished
under this new and cruel form of punishment.
It was not until a buggy stopped at the door, and the Opp brothers
descended, that the tension was in any way relieved.
Jimmy greeted them with the joy of an Arctic explorer welcoming a relief
party.
"Come right on in here, in the office," he cried hospitably; "your
talkin' won't bother me a speck."
But Ben abruptly expressed his desire for more private quarters, and led
the way up-stairs.
The low-ceiled room into which he ushered D. Webster was of such a
depressing drab that even the green and red bed-quilt failed to disperse
the gloom. The sole decoration, classic in its severity, was a large
advertisement for a business college, whereon an elk's head grew out of
a bow of ribbon, the horns branching and rebranching into a forest of
curves and flourishes.