whip-o'-will."

But Mrs. Fallows's piping note was lost in the gale of enthusiasm.
Farmers coming into town on Saturday became infected and carried the
fever into the country. The entire community suspended business to
discuss the exciting situation.

These were champagne days for Mr. Opp. Life seemed one long, sparkling,
tingling draft and he was drinking it to Guinevere. If her eyes drooped
and she met his smile with a sigh, he saw it not, for the elixir had
gone to his head.

Compelled to find some outlet for his energy, he took advantage of the
Cove's unwonted animation and plunged into municipal reform. "The Opp
Eagle" demanded streets, it demanded lamp-posts, it demanded temperance.
The right of pigs to take their daily siesta in the middle of Main
Street was questioned and fiercely denied. Dry-goods boxes, which for
years had been the only visible means of support for divers youths of
indolent nature, were held up to such scathing ridicule that the owners
were forced to remove them.

The policies suggested by Mr. Opp, the editor, were promptly acted upon
by Mr. Opp, the citizen. So indignant did he become when he read his own
editorials that nothing short of immediate action was to be considered.
He arranged a reform party and appointed himself leader. Mat Lucas, he
made Superintendent of Streets; Mr. Gallop, chairman of the Committee on
City Lights. In fact, he formed enough committees to manage a
Presidential campaign.

The attitude of the town toward him was that of a large lump of dough to
a small cake of yeast. It was willing to be raised, but doubtful of the
motive power.

"I'd feel surer," said Jimmy Fallows, "if his intellect was the
standard size. It appears so big to him he can't get his language
ready-made; he has to have it made to order."

But since the successful management of the oil-wells, Mr. Opp's opinion
was more and more considered. In the course of a short time the office
of "The Opp Eagle" became the hub about which the township revolved.

One afternoon in March the editor was sitting before his deal table,
apparently in the most violent throes of editorial composition.

Nick, who was impatiently waiting for copy, had not dared to speak for
an hour, for fear of slipping a cog in the intricate machinery of
creation. The constant struggle to supply "The Opp Eagle" with
sufficient material to enable it to fly every Thursday was telling upon
the staff; he was becoming irritable.

"W