“In the Cove,” repeated Mr. Opp, firmly. “There’s great need here for a live, enterprising newspaper. It’s a virgin field, you might say. There never was a place that needed a public voice more. My paper is going to be a voice that hears all sides of a question; it’s going to appeal to the aged and the young and all them that lies between.”
“It will be mighty grand for us!” said his companion, with interest. “When is it going to start?”
Definite plans being decidedly nebulous, Mr. Opp wisely confined himself to generalities. He touched casually on his remarkable fitness for the work, his wide experience, his worldly knowledge. He hinted that in time he expected to venture into even deeper literary waters—poetry, [p74] and a novel, perhaps. As he talked, he realized that for the second time that day he was looked upon with approval. Being accepted at his own estimate proved a new and exhilarating sensation.
It was pleasant on the wide porch, with the honeysuckle shutting out the sun, and the long, yellow blossoms filling the air with fragrance. It was pleasant to hear the contented chuckle of the hens and the sleepy hum of the bees, and the sound of his own voice; but most of all it was pleasant, albeit disconcerting, to glance sidewise occasionally and find a pair of credulous brown eyes raised to his in frank admiration. What if the swing of the hammock was making him dizzy and one foot had gone to sleep? These were minor considerations unworthy of mention.
“And just to think,” the girl was saying, “that you may be right across the road! I won’t mind staying at home so much if you’ll let me come over and see you make the newspaper.”
[p75]
“You might like to assist sometime,” said Mr. Opp, magnanimously, at the same time cautiously removing a fluttering pink ribbon from his knee. “I could let you try your hand on a wedding or a ’bituary, or something along that line.”
“Oh, really?” she cried, her eyes brightening. “I’d just love to. I can write compositions real nice, and you could help me a little.”
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Opp; “I could learn you to do the first draft, and I could put on the extra touches.”
So engrossed did they become in these plans that they did not hear the click of the gate, or see the small, aggressive lady who came up the walk. She moved with the confident air of one who is in the habit of being obeyed. Her skirt gave the appearance of no more daring to hang wrong than her bonnet-strings would have presumed to move from the exact spot where she had tied them under her left ear. Her small, bright eyes, slightly crossed, apparently saw two ways at once, for on her brief journey [p76] from the gate to the porch, she decapitated two withered geraniums on the right, and picked up a stray paper and some dead leaves on the left.
“Guin-never!” she called sharply, not seeing the couple on the porch, “who’s been tracking mud in on my clean steps?”