“‘Can’t nobody beat me making skirts’”
“Can’t nobody beat me making skirts,” said Mr. Opp, and Mr. Gallop saw him push his needle through a bit of [p321] cloth, with the handle of the shovel; “but sleeves is a more particular proposition. Why, I’d rather thread three needles than to fix in one sleeve! Why don’t you make like it’s summer-time and let her go without any?”
Miss Kippy’s lips trembled. “I want sleeves, D.—two of them, and a lady’s hat, with roses on it. We can let her be grown up, can’t we, D.?”
Mr. Gallop beat a hasty and shame-faced retreat. Though his idol had fallen from its pedestal, he determined to stand guard over the fragments, and from that night on, he constituted himself Mr. Opp’s loyal defender.
And Mr. Gallop was not the only one who came forth boldly in expressions of sympathy and respect for the ex-editor. It was especially easy for those who had prospered by the oil boom to express unbounded admiration for the conscientious stand he had taken in the late transaction. They had done him a grave injustice, they acknowledged. The wells had been reinvestigated and proved of [p322] small value. The fact that the truth was discovered too late to affect their luck deepened their appreciation of Mr. Opp.
Willard Hinton, seeing what balm these evidences of approval brought to Mr. Opp’s wounded spirit, determined to arrange for a banquet to the retiring editor, at which he planned to bring forth as many testimonials of friendship and good-will as was possible.
The affair was to take place New Year’s night, in the dining-room of Fallows’s new Your Hotel. The entire masculine contingent of the Cove was invited, and the feminine element prepared the supper. There had never been a social event of such an ambitious nature attempted in the Cove before, and each citizen took a personal pride in its success.
For a week in advance the town was in violent throes of speech-writing, cake-baking, salad-mixing, and decorating. Even Mrs. Fallows warmed to the occasion, and crocheted a candlestick, candle, flame, and all, to grace the table.