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Title: Harry's newspaper
Or the young publisher
Author: Stephen A. D. Cox
Illustrator: Willard G. Smythe
Release date: February 20, 2026 [eBook #77984]
Language: English
Original publication: Chicago: Albert Whitman & Co, 1930
Credits: Susan E., Terry Jeffress, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY'S NEWSPAPER ***
HARRY’S NEWSPAPER
[Illustration: ON THE EDGE OF COALVILLE]
HARRY’S NEWSPAPER
or
The Young Publisher
[Illustration]
_By_
Stephen A. D. Cox
Illustrations By
Willard G. Smythe
ALBERT WHITMAN & CO
[Illustration]
_CHICAGO_
HARRY’S NEWSPAPER
Copyright, 1930
Albert Whitman & Co.
Chicago, U. S. A.
ADVENTURE BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
SKIMMER THE DARING
BLUNDER’S MYSTERY COMPANIONS
FIGHTING FOR CUBA
ICEBOUND IN THE SOUTH POLAR SEAS
NOVELTY CIRCUS
Printed in the U. S. A.
FOREWORD
The technical details of the printing business, found here and there
in this story, might at first thought appear too abstruse for young
people to read, or not sufficiently understandable by the majority. But
the truth is that nowadays, in every country town, the high schools
publish a school paper, and the boys and girls come to the printing
offices, the girls with the copy that they have written for their
department in the paper, and the boys to make up the forms. Sometimes
the girls do likewise, and they learn quite a great deal about printing
and the newspaper business. They talk it so much that the children in
the different grades become impregnated by the printing and publishing
aroma.
This story of a young man who started and ran a country newspaper,
even though there is a good deal of technical explanation about the
printing, will, I believe, be well received by the majority of the
young people, and its technical details will not be considered too
obscure nor too dry for them to read.
STEPHEN A. D. COX.
_The prices quoted throughout the book may vary slightly from exact
quotations of prices for similar outlays at this current date._
THE PUBLISHERS.
This book is published as an inspiration
to all ambitious American boys seeking to
establish themselves in a business career
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
Page
I THROWN ON HIS OWN RESOURCES 15
II READY FOR BUSINESS 29
III THE OUTLOOK ENCOURAGING 50
IV MAKING GOOD PROGRESS 64
V A PLEASANT SUNDAY 77
VI BUSY DAYS 89
VII THE COALVILLE NEWS, Vol. I, No. I 111
VIII THE MASS MEETING 136
IX THE MINE DISASTER 152
X PLEASED AND ENCOURAGED 169
XI FIRE 183
XII AT THE END OF A YEAR 197
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
On the edge of Coalville 4
The Coalville News just off the press 14
The old Army press 23
Carried the table down the street 43
“Father told me to invite you to take dinner with us” 83
“Then look out for yourself, young man” 107
“The Coalville News is going to be a success” 179
[Illustration: THE COALVILLE NEWS JUST OFF THE PRESS]
HARRY’S NEWSPAPER
or
THE YOUNG PUBLISHER
Chapter I
THROWN ON HIS OWN RESOURCES
Harry Weston was an orphan at eighteen years of age. He resided in the
town of Dellwood, in southeastern Colorado, about seventy miles from
Denver. After paying his father’s funeral expenses with the money his
father had left in the bank, he was penniless. He hardly knew what to
do. He could not get work in any of the stores, as the merchants in the
town had all the employees they needed. He sat down and pondered. What
should he do? If he went to Denver he might be able to get employment,
and then again he might not. While considering matters, an idea came
to him.
One year previously he had visited an invalid uncle in Allentown, and
Harry had taken care of him till he died. This was over a period of
six months, and during that time Harry had worked in a printing shop,
as his uncle did not need constant attention; and he had learned much
about the printing business. He could set type, make up forms and put
them on the press. He even understood how to do plain commercial job
printing and had printed quite a number of neat jobs on the job-press.
Why not start a little paper somewhere? he asked himself. He knew he
could make a success of it. But having no money was a serious drawback.
He was a youth of ability and resourcefulness, however, and he felt
sure he could overcome this difficulty.
He had a sister, his only living relative and a school-teacher,
teaching at a point about twenty miles distant. He knew she had some
money saved up, as she had told him so when she was at the funeral and
had offered to let him have some to help defray the expenses if the
money in the bank had not been sufficient. He could borrow some of her.
He went at once to see his sister, who told him she would lend him all
the money she could spare, viz., one hundred dollars, but she doubted
its being enough for his purpose. He said he could make it do, and that
he would accept the loan and pay her the money back in due time, with
interest at the rate of six per cent. She agreed to this, and handed
him the one hundred dollars, taking his note for the amount. He thanked
her, bade her good-bye and went back to Dellwood.
Next day he went to a firm in Denver that sold printing machinery, type
and all kinds of printing material. Introducing himself to the manager,
he asked if he would sell him a little printing outfit suitable for
printing a small-sized paper, letting him pay a small sum down and the
rest in six months or a year.
The manager of the firm looked at the youth interestedly and asked
where he expected to start his paper.
“At Coalville,” replied Harry. “That’s a little coal-mining town of
about fourteen hundred population about seventy-five miles from here. I
was there once, and liked the looks of the town. It has no paper and I
think that I may be able to do pretty well there.”
The manager nodded and then asked: “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Are your parents living?”
“No, sir. I’m an orphan. My mother died several years ago and my father
died only a few days ago. I have a sister, a school-teacher, otherwise
I am alone in the world.”
The manager of the type foundry looked thoughtful. “What do you know
about running a paper?” he asked. “Have you had any experience?”
“I worked six months in an office in Allentown, and learned something
about the newspaper business. I can set type, make up forms and do most
any work that would need to be done in a small office such as the one I
am hoping to start.”
The manager pondered a few minutes and then said: “It would be unusual
for us to sell a minor an outfit, and chiefly on credit, but still as
you look like a bright, honest young man, we might sell you a small
equipment, you paying twenty per cent cash and we taking mortgage notes
for the balance, you to take up one of these notes each month, with six
per cent interest added. How would that do?”
“That would be splendid, sir,” said Harry, his face lighting up.
“Only--I have only one hundred dollars, and that would buy such a small
outfit, even if I only pay twenty per cent cash, that perhaps you would
not care to bother with it.”
The manager smiled. “That makes the deal all the more logical,” he
said, “as when we take a risk like this, we are glad it is not a large
one. What size paper do you plan to start in this little mining town
you mentioned? It won’t need to be very large, as there won’t be such a
great amount of news to print.”
“A seven-column folio paper ought to be big enough,” agreed Harry. “And
I expect to have one side of it already printed, with foreign news on
that side--‘ready print’, as such papers are called--and I will print
the local news on the other side.”
The manager nodded. “That might do,” he said. “You may be able to print
a very good little paper, seeing that you can print it on an army hand
press, and such a press we can sell you cheaply--only eighty-five
dollars. We have a lot of second-hand body and job and advertising type
we can let you have cheaply also, and such other material as you will
need. We will sell you the complete outfit to the amount of two hundred
dollars, and you can pay us forty-four dollars cash. The rest we will
divide up into twelve mortgage notes of thirteen dollars each, payable
one each month, with six per cent added. That will be satisfactory,
will it?”
“Oh, yes indeed, sir.”
“Very well.”
The manager of the type-foundry liked the looks of this youth who had
such sound business qualities. He went with him through the salesroom
and showed him the press and other material, and annotated what Harry
selected for purchase. The press was of interest to the youth, as they
had a cylinder press in the office where he had worked, while this army
press looked scarcely too heavy to be tucked under the arm of a strong
man to be carried in that manner. It consisted simply of an iron bed
for the type-form to rest on, while by turning a crank at one side, the
bed and form were moved from one end of the iron frame to the other,
passing at the same time underneath an iron cylinder about five
inches in diameter, this making sufficient pressure on the paper placed
on the type and held in place by a thin metal flange around the edges,
called a friskit, to print the paper very nicely. The type first had to
be inked by hand, so an ink-roller was necessary, and this was added to
the list of material for the outfit.
[Illustration: THE OLD ARMY PRESS]
Harry picked out the type he liked best, of the second-hand kind the
manager had mentioned, of both body type,--the size used for the
reading matter--and advertising and job type, the large-sized type. He
bought a lot of leads and slugs also, and some wooden reglets--these
being strips of maple one-eighth inch thick and half an inch wide, to
be sawed up into different lengths that he might need at any time. He
also purchased a ten-gallon can of ink for printing the paper, and some
black and color inks in collapsible tubes for use in job-printing.
A full-sized stand, to put the type-cases on, and with flanges
underneath, for the advertising and job-printing type-cases to rest on,
was added to his purchases. Also an imposing stone for the forms to
rest on, and a stand for the stone were included. A little job-press,
7 × 11 inches (inside chase measurements) was selected, twelve brass
column rules, and other brass rules, short lengths, or “labor-saving”
kind, as it is called. Some brass-bottomed galleys, a mallet, planer
and a benzine can were added, and then he told the manager to figure up
his bill. The manager did so, and it amounted to $198.50.
“I would have liked to have bought a paper-cutter,” said Harry, “but
I won’t have to cut much paper and can do it with an ordinary hand
paper-cutting knife--like this one here in the catalogue,” and pointed
to a picture in the catalogue.
“Yes, that will do very well,” said the manager, “and you can have the
people at the paper house where you buy your paper cut it to the proper
sizes, ready to print. Poster paper, cut 6 × 9 and 8 × 12 inches will
be the sizes you will need most, and all the cutting you will have to
do will be on jobs that require paper of small size, such as receipts,
and so forth.”
Harry started and looked disconcerted. “Goodness!” he exclaimed. “I
don’t know what I’ll do. I forgot that I will have to have job stock,
and I won’t have money enough to pay for it, as I’m spending it all
with you, excepting enough to pay freight on the presses, type and
other material. Do you suppose the paper house people will send me
paper on credit?”
“The ‘ready print’ people will,” he said, “as they carry advertising on
the side that they print and they want a big circulation so they can
get bigger prices for the advertising. I judge the people that sell
paper for the job-printing department will do likewise.”
“Thanks for that information,” said Harry, and then he turned to
finish the purchasing of the outfit. He told the manager to include
the paper-knife and some border to put around advertisements, making
the amount an even two hundred dollars. The manager did so, after
which Harry paid him the forty-four dollars and signed the twelve
mortgage-notes of thirteen dollars each,--and the transaction was
completed.
“We’ll box up your outfit and ship it to-morrow,” said the manager.
“I am glad you came to us and bought of our firm, Mr. Weston,” he
continued, “and I most heartily hope you will make your paper a great
success.”
“Thanks, sir, and thanks for having sold me the outfit on such
favorable terms,” said Harry, and took his departure.
A visit to the firm that furnished papers to country publishers with
one side of the paper already printed, and to the house that sold job
stock, as paper is called that is used in job-printing, yielded good
results, for each of these firms told him they would send him what
paper he needed, and he could pay the first of each month.
Having accomplished the business on which he had gone to Denver, Harry
boarded the train and went to Coalville, which was to be the scene of
his newspaper-publishing venture.
Chapter II
READY FOR BUSINESS
Harry rented a room and engaged board at the home of one of the miners,
and then went back downtown. He looked around till he found a room
upstairs over a grocery store, that would do for his printing-office.
The grocery store proprietor, a German named Gebhart, owned the
building, and told the youthful prospective publisher that he might
have the room for almost nothing, as it had stood empty several years
and he didn’t know of anyone else who would probably be wanting to rent
it; so Harry rented the room, paying the first month’s rent in advance.
It cost three dollars, as the German said that would be sufficient, and
he would take it out in printing after the paper was started--Harry
had, of course, told him he intended putting in a printing outfit and
would start a newspaper.
Harry had packed his trunk and suitcase before leaving Dellwood to
go to Denver to purchase his printing outfit, and had instructed the
people at whose home he had boarded while attending to the burial of
his father, to send the trunk and suitcase by express, stating the date
for them to be sent. They would be there even now, he felt sure, and on
going around to the express office he found that he was right. Paying
the express charges, he hired a man to haul them to the place where he
had engaged room and board, and he and the man carried them up to his
room.
The type foundry people of whom he had purchased his printing outfit in
Denver were as good as their word. They must have shipped the printing
press and material the next day after he purchased it, for it arrived
on the third day, and was unloaded from the freight-car onto the
railway station platform. It created considerable interest among the
people at the station, even the station agent stopping a few moments to
look at the printing paraphernalia.
“Somebody is going to start a printing office here,” he said to one of
the men standing around. “That will be good. The more industries we
have represented, the better it is for the town.”
“That’s the way to look at it,” the man replied.
Harry followed him into his office, and asked how much the freight was
on the printing material that had just been unloaded from the car. “I’m
Harry Weston,” he added, “and it’s my property.”
“Oh,” the agent said, looking at the youth with some surprise and no
little interest. “So you are the person who is going to put in the
printing office.”
“Yes, sir; and I am going to do not only job printing, but am going to
start a newspaper, too. I don’t know how it will do, but I hope the
people here will like the idea of having a newspaper and will subscribe
for it, the majority of them at any rate.”
“Likely they will do so,” said the station agent, with a friendly look
and intonation. “You can count on me as a subscriber, for one, when you
get the paper started. My name is Garland, Henry Garland. The freight
charges are fourteen dollars and seventy cents.”
“I’ll make a note of your name and send you a copy of the first issue,
and place your name in my subscription ledger as my first subscriber,”
said Harry. “And thanks for subscribing. Here is the freight money,”
and he placed a ten and a five-dollar bill on the window-ledge.
“Rented a room yet, for your office?” asked Garland as he handed out
thirty cents in change, and placed the bank-notes in the money-drawer.
“Yes, upstairs over Mr. Gebhart’s grocery store.”
“That ought to do first rate. It’s right in the heart of the business
portion of our town.”
“Yes, it’s a good location.”
Then Harry went out onto the platform and found a drayman there,
looking at the printing paraphernalia.
“Who does this belong to?” he asked of one of the men standing around.
“I’d like the job of moving it to wherever its owner wants it moved.”
“It’s mine,” said Harry. “What will you charge to haul it to Gebhart’s
grocery store and help get it upstairs into the room above?”
The drayman eyed the printing material a few moments and then said:
“Five dollars. Some of it’s pretty heavy, or I’d do it cheaper.”
“That won’t be too much,” said Harry. “Let’s load it into the dray.”
He and the man loaded the printing press and other printing material
into the dray, and then Harry got up on the seat beside the man, and
they were soon at the grocery store.
It took an hour and a half to get the printing outfit upstairs and into
the room Harry had rented, and then he paid the drayman, who departed.
Harry took off his coat and hat and hung them on a nail in one corner
of the room, and then, after a few moments of thought, went downstairs
and into the grocery store.
“May I borrow a hatchet or hammer, Mr. Gebhart?” he asked of the
proprietor. “I need one to uncrate my printing material.”
The man handed him a hammer, and Harry thanked him and went back
upstairs. He went to work in real earnest and in an hour’s time had the
printing outfit all uncrated. The wooden slats he stood on end in a
closet at the back end of the room.
The rack for the type-cases to rest on he placed near the front of
the room, at one side, where he could get good light, so he could see
to pick up the type when setting it, as the types are small, and good
light is needed. The job-press he placed in the corner opposite, edging
it into place gradually. The table for the imposing stone to rest on he
placed at one side of the room, near the center. The stone itself was
too heavy for him to lift alone, as was also the printing press. He
would have to have help to handle these, and so he put on his coat and
hat and went out to a carpenter-shop about halfway down the block.
“I’ll tell you what I want,” said Harry, when the carpenter turned to
him inquiringly. “I am in need of a narrow table about six feet long.
It ought to be pretty strong, but pine wood will do. I want to put a
printing press on it, a hand-press, weighing only about one hundred and
fifty pounds, but in printing, the form is run through under an iron
cylinder and this would make the table shake and quiver and rack it in
due time unless tolerably strong. What will you charge me to make a
table of this kind?”
“Where is your press? Perhaps I had better take a look at it, and then
I can tell better how strong a table to make,” said the carpenter. He
seemed friendly and somewhat interested. “I didn’t know we were going
to have a printing office in our town,” he continued. “Are you its
owner?”
“Yes, sir,” said Harry. “I’m going to do job printing, and also I am
going to publish a newspaper. I don’t know how well it will succeed,
but hope the people here and in this vicinity will be pleased and
subscribe. I have one subscriber already,” he added with a smile. “Mr.
Garland, the station agent, told me I might put his name on my list as
a subscriber, and that’s some encouragement.”
“I’ll take the paper, too,” said the carpenter. “My name is Merwin,
James Merwin.” He, like the station agent, seemed to have taken a
liking to this young fellow who was possessed of such good business
ambitions as to be on the point of starting a newspaper in their town,
and he only a youth of about eighteen years. They were leaving the
carpenter shop as he was talking, Harry leading the way.
“Thanks,” said Harry. “I’ll enter your name in my subscription ledger
along with Mr. Garland’s.”
They were soon upstairs in the room where the printing press and
material were, and Harry pointed to the press, resting on the floor.
It was so small and unimposing-looking that the man almost smiled. “I
wouldn’t have thought a newspaper could be printed on such a small
press as that,” he said.
“The table that I want you to make will be practically a part of the
press,” said Harry. “In effect, I mean. You see, cylinder presses have
an iron frame reaching to the floor, and actually a part of the press,
while with this hand-press it is different, as I have to have the frame
portion made extra, and as this little press isn’t heavy, a wooden
table will do.”
The carpenter nodded. “I see,” he said. “What you have explained is
clear.”
He stepped forward and lifted up the press, taking hold of the cylinder
at one side. “I’ll make you a table strong enough to stand the grind of
printing,” he said. “I’ll charge you three dollars.”
“That will be cheap enough. How soon can you have it ready?”
“By three o’clock this afternoon. I have some other work I have to do
first. I’ll help you bring it up here, too, for good measure,” and he
smiled.
“Thank you,” said Harry.
The carpenter departed and Harry set about other work he could do. He
placed the type-cases on the rack, and the job-cases he slipped into
place on the wooden flanges underneath the top cases, and then he put
the labor-saving leads and slugs in an extra case he had purchased
for the purpose and slipped it in under the type-cases; after which
he began laying, as it is termed, the job and advertising type. This
consists of putting the type in the job-cases. The new font is the type
to which the word “laying” applies, specifically explained, and not to
the second-hand type, which is tied up just as it was printed when last
used for that purpose, and this is simply “thrown in,” as it is termed
in printing parlance.
When he had gotten all the job and advertising type laid and thrown
in, Harry went to work on the body type. This was small-sized type,
eight-point size, which is the size almost universally used in
printing both country and metropolitan newspapers. All printing type is
based on what is termed “the point system,” which means that the types
are graduated sizes, differing in size from each other not less than
two points, which equals one-eighteenth of an inch. Previous to the
adoption of the point system, the type differed in size only one point,
which was only one-thirty-sixth of an inch. This was deemed not enough
of a difference, hence the adoption of the point system.
The eight-point “body type,” as it is called, was all second-hand, and
was tied up in paper, with a string around each lot of type, about five
or six inches in size, just as it had last been used in printing. As
there were about one hundred pounds--enough to fill two type-cases,
both upper and lower, (the upper case contains the capitals and small
capitals and the lower case the small letters)--this work could not be
done quickly but would furnish Harry enough to do during the rest of
the day. He had one of the cases, both upper and lower, filled by the
time the carpenter had said he would have the table for the printing
press finished.
Putting on his hat and coat, he went around to the shop and found the
table ready. He paid Mr. Merwin three dollars, then they lifted up
the table, carried it out and down the street and upstairs into the
printing-office.
“Where do you want it put?” the carpenter asked. “Show me the spot and
we’ll place the table there and then I’ll help you put the press on it.”
“Here,” said Harry, indicating the point at which he wished the table
placed. After placing it, they lifted the press and set it on the table.
[Illustration: CARRIED THE TABLE DOWN THE STREET]
“There,” said Mr. Merwin, with a smile. “There’s your press complete.”
Harry nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “Yes, the press looks better on the
table than on the floor.”
“Quite right,” the carpenter said. “Well, I wish you success,” and
departed.
Another man came in just at that moment. He was one who had been at
the railway station when the printing outfit was unloaded and had been
aroused to dropping around by the usual incentive, curiosity. Harry put
down some type he was just going to throw into the case, and nodding to
the man, said: “I’m glad some big, able-bodied man dropped in. I have
some lifting here that is too heavy for me alone. It’s this stone,” and
he indicated the imposing stone resting on the floor. “I want it placed
on this table,” and he nodded toward the stand that he had purchased
for the stone to rest on. “Will you help me put it up there?”
“Sure I will,” said the man good-naturedly, and he and Harry lifted the
stone--with some difficulty, for it was pretty heavy--and placed it on
the stand.
Harry offered the man a quarter, but he wouldn’t take it. “I wouldn’t
accept pay for doing a little lifting like that,” he said.
“All right, and thank you, sir,” said Harry. “Perhaps I can do you a
favor sometime.”
In response to the man’s friendly questions, Harry told him his plans
for starting a newspaper in Coalville, and for doing job-printing for
the business men, and explained that he hoped to make a success of his
business venture.
“I guess you’ll do pretty well with your newspaper,” the man said,
“for that’s something we’ve been needing, I’m sure, and I’ve heard some
of the business men say they wished we had a paper here. You ought to
get quite a good deal of job-printing to do, too.”
“I hope so,” said Harry. “And thank you for your encouragement.”
“That’s all right,” the friendly man said. “I wish you success. I’ll
subscribe for your paper, dating from the first issue. My name’s
Williams, Frank Williams.”
“Thank you, Mr. Williams. I’ll put your name on my subscription list
along with those of Mr. Garland, the station agent, and Mr. Merwin,
the carpenter who made the table that the press rests on. They both
subscribed.”
“All right. I’ll call again and pay for a year’s subscription as soon
as you get out the first issue.” Then he took his leave.
Harry finished distributing the rest of the body type into the other
pair of cases by half-past five o’clock, and then looked around him
with considerable satisfaction. There was the new table, with the
printing press resting on it. There was the table, or stand, with the
imposing stone resting on it. There was the job-press in the corner,
opposite the rack, and type-cases. There was the type-cases rack,
containing the type-cases filled with body type on top, job cases
with the job and advertising type underneath, and the case with the
labor-saving leads and slugs in it. There were the wooden reglets, the
composing sticks, a small one for body-type setting and a long one for
setting jobs and advertisements. There were the ink-roller, the can of
ink, the benzine can, the small collapsible tubes of various-colored
job-printing inks, and other items of printing paraphernalia.
“Well, here I am with my printing presses and material all in place,”
murmured Harry. “Now the real work of getting ready to publish the
first issue of my paper will begin. I must see all the merchants, tell
them how many papers I am going to print and get some advertisements
from them, then set the advertisements. Then I will have to get news
enough for the first issue, and will have to write a salutatory;
however, I’ll make that brief and to the point and of course friendly
to the place. This and the local news items will have to be set, after
which the forms will have to be made up, and all will be ready for the
printing of the first number of the paper.
“The ready-printed sheets to print the local news on will be here a
week from next Thursday, and I will get the paper out Friday afternoon
of next week. This is Wednesday, which leaves three days of this week,
and there will be four days of next week in which to do the work I have
to do. I instructed the paper people to send me twenty quires of paper.
That’s four hundred and eighty papers, and ought to be enough to start
with. It only costs eighteen cents per quire, but I don’t want to print
more papers than I will need.” He pondered a few moments, and then went
on: “I haven’t decided what to name my paper. Let’s see, what shall I
call it?” Again he pondered a few moments, and then said: “I’ll call it
‘The Coalville News’. Yes, that’ll do. ‘The Coalville News’ it shall
be, and long live ‘The Coalville News’!” And with a smile he put on his
coat and hat and went out, locking the door, and made his way to his
boarding-house, where he did full justice to Mrs. Tompkins’ splendid
supper of fried chicken.
Chapter III
THE OUTLOOK ENCOURAGING
Next morning, after going to the printing office and looking over his
equipment, Harry noted that there was one item missing that he would
require; that was a board on which to spread the ink. It would have to
be eighteen inches long, as the ink-roller was fourteen inches long and
there would have to be a few inches margin at each end. It ought to be
as wide also, so he decided to have it made eighteen inches square.
Pine boards, double thickness, covered with zinc, would do, and he
went out to Mr. Merwin’s carpenter shop, told him what he wanted, an
ink-board, and explained how he wanted it made. The carpenter told him
he would make it for him.
“I’m in no particular hurry for the ink-board, Mr. Merwin,” said Harry,
“as I won’t need it till I start to print, which will be a week from
next Friday. But I want it to be ready then, so I came to you to have
you make it for me, for fear I might forget it, and the printing of my
paper be thereby delayed.”
“All right. I’ll have it for you by to-morrow.”
“Thanks, Mr. Merwin, and by the way, I am just starting out to solicit
advertisements for the first issue of my paper. Wouldn’t you like to
have an advertisement in it?”
“My business doesn’t need much advertising, as my work is my best
advertisement. However, as I have a shop here on the main street, an
advertising card would be logical, so you may put one in for me. Just
say: ‘James Merwin, Carpenter. House-building and repairing, and
bench-work at my shop on Main Street, Coalville, Colorado.’ How much
will that be per week or month?”
Harry wrote the advertisement down in his notebook, and then asked:
“How much space do you want the advertisement to occupy?”
“Oh, an inch or two.”
“The price will be ten cents per inch, single column, or twenty cents
per inch, double column,” replied Harry. “That will be twenty cents per
week.”
“Make it a little larger and charge me a dollar per month,” said Mr.
Merwin. “I’ll run it steadily, to encourage you for having started a
paper here; besides, it may bring me some work that otherwise I might
not have secured.”
“True,” said Harry. “Thanks, Mr. Merwin,” and he went out, returning
to his printing office, where he placed the copy for the carpenter’s
advertisement under the planer on the imposing stone.
“That makes me think of something,” he murmured, as he went out and
downstairs to a hardware store a few doors distant. “Have you any copy
files?” he asked of the proprietor, who came forward to wait on him. “I
want the kind that you can hang on a nail on the wall, not the ordinary
base-and-spindle kind that you place on a table or desk.”
The man nodded. “Here is what you want,” he said, producing one of the
kind that Harry had mentioned.
“How much is it?”
“Twenty-five cents.”
“I want two.”
The man produced another.
“You needn’t wrap them up,” said Harry. “I haven’t far to carry them,
only up to my office upstairs over the Gebhart grocery store. I have
a printing office there, and these are to file copy on, one for ‘live’
copy, as it is called when it hasn’t been printed as yet, and the other
for ‘dead’ copy, as it is called after it has been printed.”
“I see,” said the man, looking at Harry with some interest. “Are you
really going to start a paper here? I heard that you were going to do
so.”
“Yes, sir, and I am just starting out to secure advertisements for the
first issue; You’ll want an advertisement in the paper, won’t you,
Mr.----”
“Warner’s my name, Thomas Warner. Yes, I might give you an
advertisement. How many copies of your paper are you going to print?”
“Twenty quires--that’s four hundred and eighty copies.”
“What is your price for advertising?”
“Ten cents per inch, single column. That’s the rate. You can have as
many inches of space as you want, and in whatever form--single column,
double or triple-column, or a square of so many inches. You can suit
yourself.”
The merchant tore off a piece of wrapping paper, took a pencil from
behind his ear, and wrote a few minutes, then handed the paper to Harry
who read what was written there:
“Thomas Warner, Dealer in Hardware. Lowest Prices and Courteous
Treatment of Patrons.”
“I’ll take ten inches of space,” said the merchant, when Harry had read
the advertisement. “Make it single or double column, just as you like.
I don’t doubt it’ll be seen.”
“I’ll make it double column and five inches in length,” said
Harry. “That’ll be ten inches of space, and it is a large enough
advertisement so that it will look well in a double-column space. There
isn’t much composition, but I can set it in larger type and make it
look well. Thank you, Mr. Warner, for the advertisement.”
“That’s all right, young man,” with a nod of the head. “I hope your
paper will be a success. Our town is big enough to have a paper. That’s
what we merchants have often told one another.”
“I’m going to do job printing, too,” said Harry. “That will add to the
earnings of the office and help to make my business a success. If you
need any letter-heads or envelopes, or statements, or business cards,
or any kind of job printing at any time, let me know, and I will do it
promptly and at a fair price.”
“All right, I’ll remember you when I need any printing of that kind,”
and he turned to wait on another patron. Harry went out with his
copy-hooks and advertising copy and made his way up to his office,
where he drove two nails in the wall near the imposing stone and hung
the copy-files on them. Then he stuck the two advertisements on the
hook that he intended to use for the “live” copy.
“That’s a start,” he said, with a look of satisfaction. “I believe I
can get enough advertising to make it pay me pretty well. If the people
subscribe for the paper, as I hope many of them will, and I succeed in
getting quite a good deal of job printing, I ought to do pretty well.”
Harry put in the rest of the day soliciting advertisements and
explaining that he was prepared to do job printing also. When evening
came and he looked at the advertising copy hanging on the hook a smile
of satisfaction appeared on his face. He had secured advertisements
from nearly all the merchants in the town, and taking the copy and
blank piece of paper and a pencil, he figured up the total advertising.
He found that he had secured one hundred and eight inches of
advertisements. This at ten cents per inch would amount to ten dollars
and eighty cents.
Of course this was for the first issue, but he did not doubt that most
of the merchants would keep right on advertising, using about the same
amount of space continuously. Ten dollars and eighty cents per week
for display advertising, as the large advertisements are called, would
amount to from forty-three to forty-five dollars per month, and after
he had gotten out the first issue of the paper, he would be able to
get quite a lot of what are termed “pay locals.”
These are small advertisements in paragraph form inserted among the
regular news locals. For these he would charge eight and one-third
cents per line, or three lines for twenty-five cents, and most
pay locals are about three lines long. He would thus increase his
advertising receipts about twenty dollars per month, which would
make the total amount about sixty-five dollars per month. With
this promising start he felt encouraged and believed himself safe
in expecting to make a success of the printing business and of the
publishing of a newspaper in Coalville.
Hanging the advertising copy back on the hook, Harry put on his hat and
went out, locking the door, and went downstairs and out to the street.
Just as he came to Mr. Merwin’s shop doorway a girl of about sixteen
years emerged, coming face to face with him.
“Elsie!” he exclaimed. “Why, Elsie Vaughn, how does it happen that you
are here?”
“Harry!” she said. “Harry Weston, I’m glad to see you again. How
does it happen that I am here in Coalville, you ask? It’s simple as
anything, for the answer is that I live here. And, Harry, my name isn’t
Vaughn. My name is Merwin--Elsie Merwin.”
“But,” said Harry, a puzzled look on his face, “how did you come to
be residing in Allentown, where I made your acquaintance, when I was
taking care of my invalid uncle?”
“I wasn’t residing there,” with a smile. “I was merely visiting with my
Aunt Lucy, that’s Mrs. Vaughn, and with the rest of the family. I knew
you thought I was a member of their family, and intended to tell you I
wasn’t, but your uncle died and you were busy helping with the funeral
and I didn’t bother, and you went away the next day after the funeral
and I didn’t see you again.”
“Well, well!” exclaimed Harry, with a pleased smile. “This is a
pleasant surprise to me. What do you think of my having put in a
printing plant here in your town, Elsie, and of my having turned out to
be a fellow-citizen?”
“I think it’s just splendid, Harry!” with a bright smile.
“Well, I’m glad you think that way.”
Mr. Merwin came out of the carpenter shop at that moment. He had heard
their conversation while putting on his hat and coat. He smiled and
nodded at Harry in a friendly manner, and said:
“Elsie told me about having known you in Allentown, and that you
supposed her to be a member of the Vaughn family residing next to the
home of your uncle. She said you’d be surprised when you met her and
learned her name and that she resides here in Coalville.”
“Yes, indeed, and a pleasant surprise it is!” said Harry.
“Come around and see us, any evening,” said Elsie. “We reside not two
blocks distant from where you board--one block east and one-half block
north. It’s the brown-colored house, on the west side of the street.”
“Thank you,” said Harry. “I shall take advantage of your invitation
some evening, after I have gotten over the big lot of work that I will
have to do between now and Friday of next week. That’s when I expect to
get out the first issue of my paper. It’s to be ‘The Coalville News,’
Elsie, and I hope you and the rest of the people in Coalville will like
it.”
“I’ll like it, I’m sure,” she replied with a smile. “I can’t speak for
the rest of the people, but I hope they’ll like it.” She nodded adieu
and with her father went on down the street, while Harry made his way
to his boarding-house, feeling very hopeful about his new venture.
Chapter IV
MAKING GOOD PROGRESS
Next day Harry went to work setting the advertisements. It was slow
and somewhat tedious work, but he had set jobs and some advertisements
in the office of the weekly paper in Allentown, and had made good
progress. In fact he set at least one-third of the advertisements
that day, and put them on brass galleys. All his galleys were filled,
however, and so along toward evening he placed the two seven-column
chases on the imposing stone. The chases are strong iron frames, in
which the type-forms are placed and locked up, as it is termed, and
thus made ready to put on the press.
Next he took the long composing-stick, and adjusted it to the width of
the seven-column page, viz., ninety-four picas, as it is called in
printers’ parlance. There are six picas to the inch, and the width of a
seven-column page is fifteen and two-thirds inches. He then selected a
nice, plain, clean-faced type thirty-six point in size, from among his
job and advertising type fonts and set up the heading of the paper: THE
COALVILLE NEWS.
This he placed in one of the chases, and then sawing a piece of
pica-thickness reglet--maple wood--the proper length, fifteen and
two-thirds inches, he placed this next to the heading of the paper.
Then he placed a double-line head-rule next to the reglet, after which
he set: Vol. I, No. 1. at the end of the stick. Then he put in some
two- and three-em quads. These are metal the same thickness as the
type, but not so high, coming up only about three-fourths of the
height of the type, thus not receiving any ink when the form is inked
and consequently not printing, the result being blank space.
He then set the words: Coalville, Colorado, Friday, June 14, 19--.
More quads were placed in the stick then, and over at the farther
end were set the words: Price, Three Dollars Per Year. This line of
type, called the date-line, he placed next to the pica-reglet. Cutting
another length of pica-thickness reglet, Harry placed it next to the
date-line, after which he placed another double-line head-rule next to
the pica-reglet.
He then put in the column-rules. These were brass, and of course
extended vertically, up and down the length of the chases, and fitted
neatly against the lower head-rule. He put in some wooden blocks, a
column wide, between the column-rules, to keep them from falling down
flat, as they were only six points, which is one-twelfth of an inch,
in thickness. His advertisements, however, were mostly two columns
in width, and so he took out the first column-rule at the left-hand
side, and one after another he set the advertisements in between the
column-rules. This is called “making up the forms,” and applies to both
reading matter and advertisements.
Having filled the first two columns, he took the column-rule out at
the right side, and filled those two columns with advertisements about
one-fourth of the way down, that being all the advertisements he had
set. At the center of the form, and between these two double-column
rows of advertisements were four column-rules, and between these four
column-rules were three columns of space. This space Harry intended to
be mostly for reading matter, though he might put a few single-column
advertisements at the bottom of one of the columns, and reaching up
halfway. This would leave reading matter three columns wide, which he
believed would look quite well.
He had made good progress and felt quite well satisfied, and next day
he set about half of the remaining number of advertisements. In the
evening he filled the two columns that had not been filled, and having
several more advertisements than would go on that page, he made up the
other form for receiving them. This was more easy than the first form
had been, as setting the name of the paper and the date-line had made
it difficult. This other form had no heading. All he had to do was to
place the double-line head-rule against the chase at the top, and
put in the column-rules, blocking them with the wooden blocks--called
“furniture”--in between the column-rules to keep them from falling
down. However, he took out the column-rule at the left-hand side,
making a two-column space and set in the other advertisements, filling
it about one-third of the way down.
Next day he finished setting the rest of the advertisements and placed
them in the form, filling out the double-column space; also he set into
each of the forms about half a column of single-column advertisements.
This finished the advertisement-setting, as there was no more copy.
The next thing to do was to begin on the work of securing and setting
the reading matter. It was only about one o’clock, and Harry sat down
and wrote a salutatory, brief and carefully worded. This he set in
type form in half an hour and placed it on a galley, after which he
put on his coat and hat and went down onto the street, taking along
a notebook and pencil. He went into the stores, the real estate and
insurance offices, and to the city clerk’s office, and got news items
from the clerks when they were not busy waiting on patrons, and from
the city clerk. He also went upstairs into the doctors’, lawyers’ and
dentists’ offices, where he also secured quite a few items. Then with
his notebook almost filled, he went back to the printing-office to work
at setting the news items. He set all of these before evening, then he
laid the composing stick on the type-case and drew a breath of relief.
“Another good day’s work done,” he concluded. “I have done better
than I expected, and I see now that I can get the paper out easily by
next Friday afternoon. I have somewhat more than a column and a half
of news matter set, and all the advertisements. That leaves only six
columns of news matter still to secure and set, and I can do that in
five days, I am sure. Besides I will get a twelve or fourteen-year-old
boy to help me on Monday, and he can set some type. Yes, I’ll surely be
able to get out the paper by next Friday.”
Putting on his hat and coat he went out, locked the door and made his
way downstairs and along the street. He had gone only a little way when
he met a boy of about twelve years. Harry liked the boy’s appearance.
He was bright-looking and alert, and was undoubtedly intelligent.
Stopping him Harry said courteously: “Excuse me, my boy, but I wish to
ask you a question, if you are not in a hurry.”
The boy stopped and looked at Harry. “What is it?” he asked.
“I am Harry Weston, the owner of the printing-office upstairs over
the Gebhart grocery store, and I am in need of a boy to help at the
printing work. How would you like to learn the printing business? It’s
a good trade, it is skilled labor and you can learn it gradually; and I
will pay you for your work at the same time.”
The boy looked at Harry, evidently interested.
“I might like the printers’ trade quite well,” he said. “I might work
for you, but I couldn’t say right now, as I would have to ask my father
about it first. Warner is my name, Tommy Warner. My father owns a
hardware store.”
“I know your father,” said Harry. “He has an advertisement in my paper
that is to be issued next Friday. Ask him about working for me, Tommy,
and if he is willing for you to do so, come around to my office Monday
morning about eight o’clock. Ask him, also, what wages he will be
willing for you to work for. I’ll pay you fair wages.”
“All right,” said Tommy. “I’ll ask him this evening, and will let you
know Monday morning.”
“That will be satisfactory.”
Then Tommy went on down the street and Harry continued on in the
direction of his boarding place. As had transpired a few evenings
before, however, just as he reached the Merwin carpenter shop, Elsie
emerged.
“Good evening, Harry,” she said. “How are you coming on with your work?”
“Good evening, Elsie. I am doing quite well with my work. I have all
the advertisements set and about a column and a half of reading
matter. I gathered some news items this afternoon and set them in
type-form.”
“Good. I am glad you are doing so well, and by the way, since you have
mentioned gathering news items, that makes me think that I might help
you in that. I could get quite a lot of items without much trouble and
would be glad to do so.”
“That would be kind of you, and I would appreciate it very much. As
I don’t know very many people here, it is hard for me to get news.
Thank you for offering to help me. Having the news in the paper is an
important matter, as that is what the people look for and expect to
find. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t care about subscribing. That makes
it an important matter to me at any rate,” and he smiled.
“True,” she said, smiling also. “Very well, I’ll get all the items
I can for you. By the way, I want to ask if you are going to attend
Sunday school?”
“I hadn’t given that matter any thought,” he replied, “but I guess I
will do so. I can get up early enough, even though I am pretty tired.
I want to attend the same Sunday school that you go to, Elsie, and I’m
glad you mentioned the matter, as I can go to Sunday school first. If
you hadn’t mentioned it I might have gone to some other church, and
after attending some other Sunday school even once, they might not have
liked it if I had changed to another.”
“True,” she agreed, “so I’m glad I mentioned the matter. I attend the
Baptist Sunday school.”
“I’ll be there to-morrow. What time does Sunday school begin?”
“At nine o’clock. I’ll look for you.”
Then she went on down the street, and Harry made his way to his
boarding-house, went to his room, washed his face and hands, went
downstairs and ate supper.
“Knock on my door at half-past seven in the morning, please, Mrs.
Tompkins,” he said as he was starting upstairs to his room. “I am going
to go to Sunday school.”
“Very well, I will do so,” replied Mrs. Tompkins. And then to her
husband, who was seated in a rocking-chair, reading, she said as Harry
disappeared up the stairs: “I tell you, John, that’s a mighty good
young man.”
Chapter V
A PLEASANT SUNDAY
Mrs. Tompkins knocked on Harry’s door at half-past seven next morning.
He got up and washed his face and hands, brushed his hair, and then
donned his best suit of clothes. It was a neat-fitting suit and
he looked very well. His shoes were of enameled leather and shone
brightly, adding to his well-dressed appearance. His Fedora hat and his
percale shirt and collar completed his attire, and his appearance was
such as to create a good impression in the onlooker’s mind.
After breakfast he made his way to the Baptist church. In a place as
small as Coalville it was not difficult to find any place one might be
looking for. In fact there were only three churches in Coalville.
The church was about half-filled when he arrived, and a quick glance
around showed him Elsie, who was seated with several other girls and
one young man, near the piano. She had not told him, but Harry decided
she was evidently a member of the choir. Elsie saw him as soon as he
entered and nodded and smiled; he nodded in return and took a seat a
few rows from the rear.
After the singing, and the preliminary words by the superintendent were
over, the teachers took charge of the classes. The superintendent knew
who Harry was and came to where he sat. Elsie came hurrying up the
aisle at the same moment. “This is Mr. Harry Weston, Mr. Welborn,” she
said. “He is going to print a newspaper here. He is going to attend our
Sunday school, and please see to it that he is given a place in one of
the classes and made to feel at home.”
“I am glad to make Mr. Weston’s acquaintance,” said the superintendent.
“I had heard about your having located here with the intention of
printing a newspaper. We will be glad to have the paper, and I hope and
trust it will be a success. I will assign him to the Business Men’s
class, Miss Merwin. I think he will like that class and feel at home
there.”
“Thanks,” said Elsie, and with a smile at Harry, she hastened back to
her own class, while the superintendent conducted Harry near the center
of the church, where was a class of men of various ages, from the young
business man of twenty-five years or thereabouts to forty years of age,
and introduced him to the teacher, a nice-looking man of perhaps thirty
years of age.
“This is Mr. Harry Weston, Mr. Worling,” the superintendent said.
“He is a business man. He has a printing office here and is going to
publish a newspaper; so he can qualify for your class, and I am sure
will be a good addition to it.” Then he, made his way to the place
where the Bible Class was, he being its teacher.
“Glad to make your acquaintance and to have you as a member of our
class, Mr. Weston,” said the teacher, shaking hands with him as Harry
was entering the pew and taking his seat. “Men, this is Mr. Weston,” to
the other members of the class, who nodded and said they were glad to
know him, after which Mr. Worling gave Harry a lesson-leaf and began on
the lesson.
He was a good teacher, and talked and explained the lesson in an
interesting manner and Harry enjoyed the hour spent in listening to him.
A short talk by the superintendent, another song by the choir, with all
the people in the church joining in the singing, followed by a brief
prayer by Mr. Worling, and the superintendent said, “Sunday school is
dismissed.” The people rose from their seats and began making their
way out of the church, talking to one another in a pleasant and cheery
manner. There was to be a ten minutes’ intermission, after which those
who wished to remain for the sermon would return to their seats.
Elsie reached Harry’s side just as he was going through the big
double doorway. “Father told me to invite you to take dinner with
us, Harry,” she said. “He was not feeling well this morning and did
not come to Sunday school. He isn’t really ill, and is sitting up,
reading. Won’t you come? It’ll please father and me, and I want you to
become acquainted with mother. I told her, of course, that we made
each other’s acquaintance when I was visiting Aunt Lucy at Allentown
a few months ago.” Elsie made this last remark mostly to inform the
people around her why she was so friendly to Harry and seemed so well
acquainted with him.
“Thank you, Elsie,” said Harry. “I’ll be glad to accept your kind
invitation,” and he walked down the steps with her and up the street in
the direction of her home.
“That’s a nice-looking young man,” said one of two men who were
standing on the porch in front of the church. The other nodded and
replied:
“Yes indeed. He seems to be pretty bright, and perhaps he will make a
success of his newspaper that he intends publishing here. I hope so, at
any rate, as it will give the town more prestige to have a newspaper.”
[Illustration: “FATHER TOLD ME TO INVITE YOU TO TAKE DINNER WITH US.”]
“True,” the other said. “He’s rather young to be running a newspaper,
but he may be able to make a go of it.”
The other nodded, and then they re-entered the church, as they were
remaining to hear the sermon.
The two young people reached and entered Elsie’s home, and Mr.
Merwin shook hands with Harry and greeted him pleasantly, and to a
nice-looking, motherly woman who came in from the dining-room, Elsie
said:
“This is Harry, mother--Harry Weston, whose acquaintance I made in
Allentown while visiting Aunt Lucy and about whom I have told you. I’m
glad you are to know each other.”
“I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Weston--Harry, as Elsie calls
you. I am sure we will be friends,” and she smiled and shook hands with
him.
“I’m certainly glad to make the acquaintance of Elsie’s mother,” said
Harry, with a pleasant smile.
They talked a few minutes and then Mrs. Merwin excused herself to
return to the dining-room, and later went to the kitchen to look after
the work there. She did her own housework with occasional help from
Elsie.
Dinner was ready and on the table at noon, and they ate appreciatively
the good food that Mrs. Merwin had prepared. Harry enjoyed it, but he
enjoyed more the company of such nice people. Elsie he honestly liked,
and Mr. and Mrs. Merwin he thought highly of.
After dinner the four of them sat in the big, comfortable front room
and talked. They talked of various matters of interest, including the
new paper that Harry was so soon to publish, and they told him they
felt sure he would make a success, as they needed a paper in their
town. He thanked them for their good wishes and said he would make a
success if it were possible.
At her father’s suggestion Elsie played some compositions on the piano
and sang two or three songs that she had played and sung when she was
visiting her aunt in Allentown. Harry, whose uncle’s house had been
near enough to enable him to hear her playing and singing, remembered
the songs and smiled in a pleased manner.
“I used to hear you sing those when I was at my uncle’s home in
Allentown, Elsie,” he said. “I liked them immensely, but I enjoy them
better now, as I can hear your singing more distinctly.”
“I’m glad you liked my singing--and still like it,” Elsie said with a
smile.
“Do you sing, Mr. Weston--Harry?” asked Mrs. Merwin.
“Only a little,” was the modest reply. “I used to sing tenor in the
Sunday school choir in the church in Dellwood, and some few people
were so kind as to tell me I had a good voice, but I suppose they were
saying it mostly to please me.”
“Come and sing along with me,” said Elsie. “We’ll see whether those
people were only saying what they did to please you.”
Harry arose and stood by Elsie’s side at the piano while she played
and sang one of the songs. Harry sang along with her, his tenor voice
adding considerable to the rendition.
“Those people that told you you had a good voice meant it, Harry,” she
said. “Your voice is just splendid, and I am going to have you sing in
the choir in our church. We need a tenor voice. Charley Martin sings
bass, but his voice alone isn’t quite strong enough to offset the
girls’ singing, but with your tenor voice added to his bass, the music
will be nicely balanced. I am going to tell Superintendent Welborn to
appoint you a member of our choir next Sunday, and you must accept the
appointment and sing with us regularly.”
“Very well. I shall be glad to do so,” said Harry.
He stayed till about four o’clock, when two of Elsie’s friends came,
and he told Elsie and her parents that he must be going. They asked him
to remain and take supper with them, but he thanked them and excused
himself, and took his departure. Elsie and her parents told him to come
again. “And don’t forget,” said Elsie, smiling and shaking her finger
at him as he was leaving, “that you are to sing in our choir at Sunday
school next Sunday.”
Chapter VI
BUSY DAYS
Next morning Harry was at the printing office by half-past seven, and
at about eight o’clock Tommy Warner appeared, as he had promised to do.
“What did your father say?” asked Harry. “Is he willing for you to work
for me here in the printing office and learn the printers’ trade?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “He said he guessed it would be as good a trade
as I could learn.”
“What wages did he say you might work for?”
“He said for me to tell you that if you can afford to pay me three
dollars a week, that would be satisfactory, and that he supposes I can
earn that much.”
“Certainly you can, Tommy. That will be all right, and I’m glad your
father is willing for you to work here. I need someone to help me. I
could hardly do all the work myself.”
“So I would suppose.”
“You can set some type, right from the very first, and all that you set
will be that much help. I have some items here that you can work on
while I go down and look for more news. I want to get all the news I
can, each day, and keep it set up in type form; then we will have quite
a newsy paper when publishing day comes.”
Tommy hung up his hat and coat, and went to the cases where the type
was.
“You’ll have to have a box to stand on,” said Harry. “You aren’t tall
enough to reach the type in the cases. Run down into the store and ask
Mr. Gebhart if you can have a carton. Tell him it’s for the printing
office and to charge it to Harry Weston.”
Tommy nodded and hurried downstairs, returning a few minutes later with
a wooden box about eighteen inches high, which he placed on the floor
in front of the rack holding the type-cases, and stepping onto it, he
found that he could see and pick up the type nicely.
Harry took the composing-stick in his hand, put the composing-rule in
it, and then set a line of the news item, the copy for which he had
placed on the case. He set the type slowly, so Tommy could see how it
was done, and made such explanations as were necessary. He explained
the use of the spaces, one of which is placed between each word, so
they would not be all strung along together, in which form they could
hardly be read. After he had set the line, he showed Tommy how to read
the line, beginning at the left-hand side and reading across, the
same as in the printed page, with this difference, that the type is
bottom-side up, this making it somewhat harder to read, but quite easy
after one has had a little practice.
“If you get a wrong letter in a line,” explained Harry, “correct it
before setting the next line. Some compositors, in fact most of them,
never correct the type they have set until after it has been put on the
galley and a proof taken. Then it is hard work and takes more time, and
they are liable even then to ‘pi’ some of it. That means that the type
is liable to fall down and become mixed up, and sometimes has to be
set over again. By correcting each line as soon as it is set, you make
hardly any errors and don’t have to do any correcting on the galleys,
and the type doesn’t ‘pi’. I always correct each line as soon as I set
it, and I never have to do any correcting on the galleys. You had
better do that way, too, Tommy.”
“Very well,” said the boy, and then he took the stick in his hand when
Harry handed it to him and began setting type. He had seen how Harry
did it. Tommy did the same, though of course he was much slower. But
he did quite well and his instructor could see that Tommy would soon
become quite a good typesetter.
“That’s all there is to it,” said Harry with a smile, as he was putting
on his coat and hat. “Just keep picking up the type and putting them in
the stick. I’ll be back before you will get the stick set and will show
you how to ‘dump’ it, as taking the type out of the stick and putting
it on the galley is called.”
“All right,” was the reply, and Harry took his notebook and pencil and
went downstairs and onto the street and began his rounds of the stores
and city offices in his search for news items.
He returned to the office in about an hour with a new lot of items, and
found that Tommy had set almost a stickful. Taking it from the boy’s
hand, Harry pushed the composing-rule down behind the first line of
type that had been set. There were leads between each line, and the one
in front of the last line that had been set held the type in place, and
Harry lifted the type--there were sixteen lines--out of the stick and
placed it on a galley.
“You can do that after a little practice with a few lines at a time,”
he said to Tommy. “From now on you can dump your own type, and during
the first week at any rate, I wouldn’t try to lift more than seven or
eight lines at a time, out of the stick.”
“Very well,” said Tommy. He seemed pretty well pleased with his new
work, and taking the stick when Harry handed it to him, went ahead
setting type.
Harry had had forethought enough to purchase two small composing-sticks
and two composing-rules, so he took the other stick and rule and went
to work setting type at the other case. When he had set the bulk of the
news items he had secured, he put on his hat and coat and went out to
complete the rounds of the places where he secured news. He had only
gone about halfway around the first time.
He was back again in about an hour, and in addition to the news items,
he had secured a job of printing from one of the merchants, Mr. Holman,
who owned a dry goods store. He wanted five hundred letterheads and
five hundred envelopes, with his business advertisement on each.
Harry hung the news items on the “live copy” hook, and then went to
work setting the two jobs. This he accomplished in about an hour and a
half, and by this time it was noon.
“We’ll go to dinner now, Tommy,” he said. “We’ve done enough work for
one morning.”
Tommy nodded and smiled and put the stick up on the case, donning his
hat and coat at the same time Harry did, and they left the office
together, Harry locking the door. “Come back at one o’clock, Tommy,” he
said. “From eight till twelve are the morning hours, and from one till
five in the afternoon, with one hour for dinner. That is eight hours of
working time, and we ought to be able to get out the paper each week
and do what job printing there will be to do, working eight hours per
day. If we ever do happen to get behind and have to work later, I will
pay you for the extra time you work.”
“That is all right,” said Tommy, and parting at the foot of the stairs,
they went their ways, Tommy to his home and Harry to his boarding-house.
That afternoon Harry printed the five hundred letter-heads and the five
hundred envelopes. The different kinds of stock for the job printing
department--letter-heads, envelopes, statements, etc.--had arrived
Saturday afternoon, and Harry had stacked the packages up in one corner
of the room without opening them.
Then he helped Tommy set the rest of the news items, and they were
finished by five o’clock.
“We’ve done a good day’s work, Tommy,” said Harry, as they were leaving
the office. “I believe we’re two pretty good printers,” and he smiled.
“There’s nothing like believing in one’s own abilities,” he added,
“and if anybody doesn’t brag about us, we can do it ourselves.”
“Yes,” said Tommy, and he went on down the street toward his father’s
store, while Harry made his way up the street in the other direction.
Elsie Merwin was standing in the door of her father’s carpenter shop
when he reached there.
“You’re just the person I wish to see, Harry,” she said. “Here are some
local news items I secured for you. I wrote them down and intended to
bring them to your office, but was busy and could not do so.”
“Thanks very much, Elsie,” said Harry, as she handed him the news
items. “We just finished setting all that I had gotten in the stores
and offices, and these will do to begin work on in the morning. Thank
you very much indeed.”
“I’m glad to be of help to you, and will get all the news I can,
regularly. It’s a pleasure to me.”
Her father called to her at that moment, and with a nod and a smile she
went back into the shop, while Harry went on to his boarding-house.
The next day’s work at the printing office was about the same as the
day before.
“We’ll have enough type set to fill the paper by Thursday,” Harry said.
“Then we can go to press Friday morning, and that will give us all day
to get the papers printed. I expect we will need that much time, for
we have two forms to print from, and can only print one at a time, and
there will be four hundred and eighty papers to print. As we will have
to run them through twice, that will be the same as if we had nine
hundred and sixty papers to print, and only have to run them through
once.”
Next day they set all the news there was, and Harry did a job of
printing for Mr. Gebhart, the groceryman--five hundred statements;
he also made up the two forms, as putting the type in between the
column-rules is called. He didn’t have type enough to fill all the
space as yet. There was about a column and a half of space still to
fill, but he was sure they would have enough news items for it. If not,
he could write an article about the town, something complimentary that
would please the people, and this could be set and put in to fill up
with.
But he didn’t have to write that kind of an article after all, for an
event took place that furnished something far more interesting to write
about.
It was Mr. Tompkins who gave him the information. He was a miner,
working in the smaller of the two mines that were being operated in
Coalville. The manager of this mine was a somewhat hard-headed, stingy
man--so Mr. Tompkins declared--by the name of Morgan. He had had a
number of foreigners shipped from New York--and was going to give
them work in the mine, as they would work for smaller wages than the
American miners already working there. There were seventy-five in all,
and while Morgan would probably not discharge that many of the men
already working for him, he would discharge some of them.
“I may lose my job for all I know,” said the miner, with a sober look
on his face. “Morgan and I don’t exactly agree, but I’m a good, strong
man and able to do my full share of the day’s work, so he may not
discharge me. Some of the men’ll have to go, though, unless Morgan can
be induced not to give the foreigners work after all. I wish it could
be done, but I don’t know whether it can or not, for he’s hard-headed
and set in his ways.”
“That is a pretty bad state of affairs for you home men,” said Harry,
sympathetically. “As a citizen of Coalville, and naturally with my
sympathies on the side of the home miners, both for their sakes and
mine, I am willing to do what I can to try to prevent the foreigners
from going to work more cheaply than the home miners, thus throwing
some of them out of employment.” He paused and looked thoughtful for a
few moments and then said:
“I am going to publish a newspaper here, and as newspapers are
influential, I don’t know but that I will inquire into this affair as
thoroughly as I can, then publish an article protesting against the
home miners being thrown out of employment. Don’t you think that would
be a good idea, Mr. Tompkins?”
“Yes, sir. Do it, young man!” said the miner. “I’ll stand by you, and
so will all the other miners. Print a protest. When does your paper
come out?”
“Friday.”
“And to-day’s only Wednesday. I’m afraid the paper will be out too late
and the protest not be of much avail. However, look into the matter,
and if you do print it, even though it’s a day late, we may be able to
oust the foreigners, even after they’ve begun work.”
“All right, I’ll see to it and will investigate the matter in the
morning.”
Harry made the rounds of the business houses next morning, beginning
at half-past seven, and asked the merchants what they thought of the
matter, telling them how Morgan, the manager of the mine--the Annex as
it was called, as it was small compared to the main mine and subsidiary
to it--was putting in a lot of foreigners and discharging some of the
home men working there. The merchants, almost to a man, said they
thought it was not right and very unfair; they deplored it and wished
that it might be prevented.
“The home miners all have families and patronize our stores, spending
all their earnings here, while the foreigners are single men and
would not spend much money with us,” one merchant said, and when
Harry mentioned this to the others they all agreed. “We don’t like
the foreigners to be given work and our own men deprived of their
situations,” another merchant said. That was the general verdict among
all the business men of the place.
Having learned this, Harry told them that he would write and print the
next day in the forthcoming issue of the new paper a protest against
the foreigners being given work at the expense of a number of the home
miners who would be thrown out of employment. Somebody must have told
Morgan about this, for just as Harry had gotten through interviewing
the merchants and was about to go upstairs to his office, he was
confronted by a dark-visaged, dangerous-looking man, who asked abruptly:
“Are you Weston, who is going to print a newspaper here?”
Harry nodded. “I am,” he replied.
“I hear you are going to print a protest against my putting some
foreigners to work in my mine--seventy-five of them there are, that I
ordered sent here from New York.”
“You are Mr. Morgan?” queried Harry.
“I am.”
“Do you own the mine?”
The man hesitated. Then he said: “Not totally. I own it partly and am
its manager.”
Harry thought a few moments and then asked: “In case those foreigners
work in your mine, how many of the home men will be thrown out of
employment?”
“The foreigners are already at work. I just started them in, in the
mine. I have already discharged forty of the men who have been working
there, and may discharge more.”
“The foreigners work more cheaply, I hear. That’s the point, as you
look at the matter.”
[Illustration: “THEN LOOK OUT FOR YOURSELF, YOUNG MAN”]
“That’s the point.”
“But think of the families of the forty miners whom you have
discharged. They might starve.”
“The men can get work in the other mine, likely.”
Harry shook his head. “I inquired about that. They have all the men
they need already working there.”
The man shrugged his shoulders. “They can move away to some other
mining region, and get work.”
Harry shook his head. “They own their homes here,” he said, seriously,
“and don’t want to move away, and it is costly moving from place to
place.”
Again the man shrugged his shoulders. “That’s their own affair,” he
said. “And discharging them is my own affair.”
Harry shook his head. “I’m not a lawyer,” he said, “but my common
sense tells me that it is somewhat the affair of nearly everybody in
this place, both of the men that have been discharged and especially
of the merchants. The men, having lost their situations, will not be
earning anything. They cannot patronize the merchants, as they wouldn’t
have any money to pay for the merchandise. The merchants will lose the
profits they would have made off the goods sold while the men were
working and earning their usual wages. Thus the merchants are injured
financially, while the miners are indeed in serious circumstances. I
wouldn’t keep the foreigners working, Mr. Morgan, if I were you, and I
would give back their situations to those forty home miners.”
The man shook his head. “I am going to keep the foreigners working, and
of course won’t give the old men their situations back, as I won’t
need them,” he said.
“Then I am going to write and print a protest in my newspaper that will
be out to-morrow,” said Harry.
Morgan uttered an impatient exclamation. “Don’t do it!” he said.
“I will!” said Harry.
“Then--look out for yourself, young man, that’s all!” said Morgan, and
he turned and strode away down the street.
Chapter VII
THE COALVILLE NEWS, Vol. I, No. 1
Harry went upstairs and sat down to write an article about the
discharge of the home miners as a result of the foreigners having been
given work in the Annex Mine, then he went to work and set it up in
type-form. It was the middle of the afternoon when he finished and
there was a galley and a half in all. This, added to the local news
items that Tommy set in the meantime, would be enough to fill the rest
of the space in the forms, and Harry felt very well pleased.
“I’m going to make up the forms now, Tommy,” he said, “and have them
all ready so we can go right to printing the first thing in the
morning. We may be able to get the papers printed by noon.”
He went to work making up the forms, as he had said, and soon had the
type all in and evened up at the bottom, so that the foot-stick would
fit up evenly against the lower ends of the seven columns of type. The
foot-stick is of iron, and is about half an inch thick and two-thirds
of an inch wide. There is a side-stick, also, that fits against the
type lengthwise of the form. Between the foot-stick and the side-stick
is a space of about half an inch, and in this space quoins are placed.
These are cast-metal, nearly half an inch thick at the large end and
sloping down to only about an eighth of an inch at the other end. They
have indentations and ridges in their top, these indentations and
ridges alternating, and there is a key, as it is called, with a handle
at the top and indentations and ridges in the other end, which is
about one-third of an inch in diameter. There are only four of these
indentations and ridges in the end of the key, and they fit into the
indentations and ridges in the quoins. When the key is twisted around
and around by the handle, the two quoins, placed face to face with the
large ends in opposite directions and the thin ends pointing toward
each other, are spread apart.
The flat, straight sides of the quoins pressing against the iron chase
at one side and against the iron foot and side-sticks at the other,
compress the type in the form and tighten it so that even though it
consists of several thousands of little individual pieces of metal,
viz., the type, spaces, quads, etc., it is all pressed together like
one solid piece of metal. The form thus locked up, as it is termed,
can be lifted off the imposing stone and carried and placed on the
press to be printed from, or taken off the press and carried and placed
back on the imposing-stone and the quoins loosened; this frees the
individual pieces of metal from compression and the type can be taken
out and thrown back into the cases, ready to be set up and be printed
from again.
Harry, having filled the forms with the type and fitted the sides and
foot-sticks in, placed the quoins in between the foot-sticks and the
side of the chase. These forms that Harry’s paper was to be printed
from were seven-column ones. A form of that size requires two pairs of
quoins at the foot, and three pairs of quoins at the side, to compress
the type in the chase sufficiently, to hold them all in place and make
the type as compact as one solid piece of metal.
Harry had learned all this in the office in Allentown, and he placed
two pairs of quoins at the foot and three pairs of quoins at the
side of each form, and pushed the two pieces constituting each pair
of quoins together with his fingers. This was tight enough for the
present, as he would not lock the forms up until ready to go to press
in the morning. To lock them up tightly and leave them overnight caused
the chases to spring. They are strong, but bend slightly when the forms
are locked up tightly, and if the forms are left locked up too long and
the chases thus become sprung, the whole form will “cave in.” A bushel
or two of “pi,” or mixed and jumbled type, is the result.
It is too tedious a job and takes too long a time to sort out and
distribute such a large quantity of this mixed type. It is therefore
thrown into a carton labeled “Old Metal,” to be sold back to the type
foundries at the rate of about eight cents per pound. At the same
time the publisher writes an order to the same type foundry to send
him a hundred pounds of new type for which he pays about sixty cents
per pound. Therefore printers have to be careful of their printing
paraphernalia so that the profits of running their printing business
will not be appreciably diminished.
“I almost forgot something,” said Harry, turning to Tommy. “Run down to
Mr. Merwin’s carpenter shop and get the ink-board that I had him make
for me. It has been done several days, but it won’t be needed till the
time comes to print, and I didn’t think to get it.”
“All right,” said Tommy, and he went on the errand, returning in about
ten minutes with the ink-board.
“That’ll do first rate,” said Harry, taking it and looking at it. It
was made of two thicknesses of pine board nailed together crosswise,
and was covered with a sheet of zinc. “It can be placed on that box
you stand on to set type, when we go to print. You’ll have to do the
inking, Tommy, by hand. See, here’s the ink-roller,” and he set the
ink-board down against the wall and lifted the ink-roller out of a
wooden box.
The rollers used in printing are a composition composed principally
of glue and molasses, soft on the surface and at the same time tough
enough to stand a lot of use if carefully handled. This surface is
smooth and at the same time slightly grainy, as it might be called,
and the ink, when distributed on some smooth surface, adheres to the
roller. Then when the roller rolls across the top of the type, the
type is inked; and when paper on which anything is to be printed is
placed on top of the type and strong pressure brought to bear upon it,
the type-conforma--local news items, advertisements or whatever it may
be--is impressed on the paper, this constituting the printed sheet.
Ink-rollers have to be cleansed of the ink, and of dust or anything
that gets on them, by benzine, which removes the ink, etc., without
injuring the surface of the roller. Lye-water, diluted to the proper
thinness, will remove ink from type-forms, but will ruin the surface
of the ink-rollers, as the lye will eat into the molasses and glue
compound.
The ink-roller that Harry had purchased was fourteen inches long and
about three inches in diameter. At the center, extending through from
end to end and projecting half an inch or so, was what is termed the
core, this being an iron rod about half an inch in diameter, and such
an iron rod, or core, is in all ink-rollers. The projecting end of
the core fitted into holes in the ends of an iron frame, to which was
fastened a handle to grasp while distributing the ink and rolling the
roller across the form.
“You can handle this ink-roller and ink the forms without difficulty,
Tommy, as the roller isn’t very heavy.” He handed it to Tommy, who
tested its weight and nodded.
“Yes, I can handle it, I am sure,” he said. “It isn’t very heavy.”
When five o’clock came Harry looked at the two seven-column forms with
satisfaction, and nodded his head.
“Everything’s ready, and we start printing the paper the first thing in
the morning,” he said to Tommy, who nodded. “I hope the people will
like the paper,” he added.
“I’m sure they will,” the boy replied. “It’ll make the place seem
livelier to have a paper.”
“Yes, it’ll help some,” Harry remarked, and then they went out and to
their respective homes.
Next morning they began work promptly at eight. Tommy placed the carton
beside the table on which the press stood, and placed the ink-board on
it, and then in accordance with Harry’s instructions placed some ink
from the ten-gallon can on the ink-board. He rolled the roller back and
forth and crosswise until the ink was distributed thinly and evenly.
Meanwhile Harry had locked up the first form, the one with the heading
of the paper, and had placed it on the iron bed of the press; and this
made the preparations for printing complete, as in addition to making
the forms ready to print from the evening before, Harry, assisted by
Tommy, had folded the four hundred and eighty sheets of paper. As it
was only possible to print one form at a time, the paper had to be
folded. It was the “ready print” kind, one side of it, or two pages,
already being printed, and consisting of foreign news, as opposed to
local news. The four hundred and eighty sheets were stacked up on a
table at the side of the press.
“The paper is half printed already, Tommy,” said Harry. “Now let’s see
if we can print the rest in half a day. I don’t know how fast we can
print, nor how long it will take us to run these papers through, but
if we don’t get it done by noon we’ll surely be able to do so by the
middle of the afternoon. Now let’s get to work.”
Harry placed one of the papers up against the heavy ducking, which,
being sewed around a thin iron frame, constituted the tympan, as it is
called. It was the proper size to fit down over a seven-column form,
the iron flanges fitting around the form, thus not coming down onto the
type, and the thin metal frame called a friskit, fastened at the top
pivotally so it could be lifted up and down. He pulled down until it
fitted against the paper all around, thus holding it in place. Then he
laid all three--the tympan, paper and friskit--down onto the top of the
form, Tommy having inked the type from one end of the form to the other
as Harry had instructed him to do.
Then taking hold of the crank at the side next to him, Harry turned it
around slowly, the iron bed with the form on it moving through beneath
the iron cylinder, which was adjusted to exactly the right height so
that it pressed down tightly on the type-form, thus making a printed
impression. This iron bed was moved along by strong steel cogs on
the end of the cylinder next to Harry, these cogs fitting into cogs
along the entire length of the iron frame of the press. A small press
such as this needed only cogs at one end, as the cylinder had a steel
projection at the other end about half an inch in diameter, that fitted
into the hole in a portion of the iron framework of the press that
extended upward, somewhat like a flange.
When he had turned the crank till the bed of the press and the form
had passed completely through and somewhat beyond the cylinder, Harry
stopped and lifted up the friskit, the paper lifting at the same time,
and there was the front page of the first issue of “The Coalville
News,” printed neatly and clearly, staring him and Tommy in the face.
“How’s that, Tommy?” asked Harry, smilingly. “How does that look?”
“Great!” said Tommy. “Jinks! I didn’t know it would look as well as
that!”
“I was sure it would,” said Harry. “You see, I worked in a newspaper
office in another town, and helped print the paper, so I knew about how
it would look.”
Tommy nodded. “With the other page printed, it’ll be a nice paper,” he
said.
“You’re right, Tommy,” Harry agreed.
He took the paper off the tympan and sat down to look it over to see
if there were any errors that would have to be corrected. He did not
believe there were any, as he always corrected each line of type as
soon as he set it, and Tommy had done likewise, in accordance with
Harry’s instructions. Tommy had made a few errors, but Harry had
corrected these while making up the forms.
At the top of the first column Harry had placed his salutatory. It was
brief and consistent, simply stating that “The Coalville News” was
started with the hope that it would please the people of the town and
vicinity, that they would subscribe for and read it; that he, as its
publisher, would make it as interesting and newsy as possible, and
that he would do his best to make it a benefit not only to himself,
but to the town and community as well. At the bottom his name, “Harry
Weston,” and the words, “Editor and Proprietor,” appeared.
At the top of the next two columns, the type set double-column width
and in large type, was the article of protest Harry had written--the
protest against the foreign miners being given work in the Annex Mine
and the home miners being discharged. On the top line, in twenty-four
point type, or type one-third of an inch wide, Harry had printed the
main heading of the article in the following words:
NOT FAIR TREATMENT!
Just below this, in eighteen-point type, was a secondary heading line,
as follows:
“Foreign Miners Employed in the
Annex Mine--Home Miners
Discharged!”
Below this he printed a third heading, in twelve-point type, as follows:
“The Business Men of Coalville,
Including the Publisher of This
Paper, Protest! They Hope to
Get Mr. Morgan, the Annex
Mine’s Manager, to
Reconsider!”
Then followed the article, printed in eight-point type, the size
used throughout for the news portion, where Harry explained all he
had learned about the employing of the foreigners by Mr. Morgan and
the discharge of the home miners, that he had talked with all the
merchants in Coalville, who were unanimous in declaring Mr. Morgan’s
actions as unfair treatment of the home miners; and that they one and
all, including the publisher of “The Coalville News,” protested, and
approved of a protest being printed. This being the case, he, Harry
Weston, the editor and publisher of the Coalville newspaper, had
written and printed the protest; he hoped it would have considerable
effect in getting Mr. Morgan to reconsider his unfair treatment of the
home miners, and that it might lead to his discharging the foreigners
and re-employing the home men.
It was a good article indeed, well-written, and would make a good
impression undoubtedly, as Harry had written it carefully, and it was
couched in calm, conservative language.
There were no errors to correct, so they went right ahead printing;
in an hour and a half’s time they had printed the first page of each
of the four hundred and eighty papers. Harry then took the form off
the press and put it back on the imposing-stone. The form was not too
heavy for one to handle, as it weighed only about eighty-five pounds.
He then washed the ink off the face of the type with a cloth moistened
with benzine, unlocked the form by loosening the quoins, and then
locked up the other form and put it onto the bed of the press.
“The ink on the first hundred or so of the papers we printed is dry
enough by this time so it won’t offset,” said Harry, “and by the time
we get those printed the rest will be dry enough.” “Offsetting” means
the smudging of the white, unprinted paper by the moist ink from the
printed paper.
They got the four hundred and eighty papers printed a little while
before noon, and after he had taken the form off the press, put it
on the imposing-stone, cleaned off the type with benzine and then
unlocked the form. Harry turned to Tommy:
“I’ll tell you what I want you to do, Tommy,” he said. “You can do it
after you have eaten your dinner. I want you to get at least three
other boys and have them come to the office with you. Get them here
as soon as you can after dinner. I want you four to distribute these
papers into the homes of the people here in Coalville. You see, I
haven’t any real list of subscribers as yet. I have them still to get,
and I don’t know of any better way to get them to subscribe than to
hand them sample copies until they do subscribe; and in due time I will
have a regular bona fide list of subscribers and can send the papers
through the post-office.”
“Very well,” said Tommy. “I can get three boys to help, easily enough.
We’ll be here soon after one o’clock.”
“Good, and thanks, Tommy. Tell them I will pay them a fair price for
the work, and will hand them their pay as soon as they have finished.”
“All right,” and Tommy hurried out. Harry followed, and locking the
door, made his way downstairs and to the Tompkins home, where he ate
quite appreciatively of Mrs. Tompkins’ good food.
He had not been at the office more than ten minutes before Tommy
arrived, accompanied by three other bright-looking boys.
“Here they are, Harry,” he said. “These boys’ll help distribute the
papers.”
“All right. I’ll divide the papers among you. There are four hundred
and eighty papers, but I want to keep sixty of them, as I am going to
distribute the paper in all the business houses at the same time you
boys are distributing them in the homes. That leaves four hundred and
twenty, which will be one hundred and five for each of you. I’ll count
them out.”
He did so, and found that there were fifteen extra copies. “They put
these in for good measure, I suppose,” he said. “I’ll keep them in the
office, as I want two to put on file, and there may be a few people who
will come in and want an extra copy. Now go ahead, boys, and be sure
and leave a paper at each house. The best way to do will be to divide
the town up into four sections, and each deliver papers in his section.
That will be more systematic than haphazard delivery and you will not
be so likely to miss any houses.”
“All right,” said Tommy, and the other boys nodded. They went
downstairs, discussing among themselves which boy should deliver
papers in each of the different sections.
Harry then, with the sixty papers under his arm, went downstairs and
made his way from store to store, then upstairs into the professional
offices and into the city clerk’s office. He did not stop to talk to
the merchants, but simply handed them the paper, or laid it on the
counter, and went on. It was done in three-quarters of an hour. He
returned to his office and sat down to rest, as he had worked pretty
hard and was tired. Taking up one of the papers he began looking it
over while waiting for the boys to return.
They did not get back till nearly four o’clock. “We delivered the
papers at all the houses,” said Tommy. “We only had three papers left,
and I brought them back.” He handed them to Harry, who placed them on
the table.
“That’s good,” he said. Then turning to the other boys, he added: “How
much do I owe you for distributing the papers?”
They glanced at one another, and then one said: “I guess fifty cents
apiece would be about right.” He glanced at the other two and they
nodded.
“That is all right, and reasonable enough,” said Harry, and he handed
each of them a fifty-cent piece.
“Thanks,” they said, and then the one who had spoken up added: “If you
want us to carry papers each week, we will do so.”
“Yes, I will want you to do so for a few weeks at any rate,” was the
reply. “Come up to the office every Friday about one o’clock.”
“All right, we’ll be here,” the same boy said, and the other two
nodded, then they left the office and went down onto the street.
At five o’clock Harry and Tommy went to their homes.
Harry’s paper, “The Coalville News,” the first issue of which the
people read with interest, pleased them very much and was the subject
of much favorable comment.
Chapter VIII
THE MASS MEETING
Harry had only been in his office a few minutes next morning when
the door opened and Morgan, the manager of the Annex Mine, entered.
His face wore a dark look, and Harry almost thought he was to be
feloniously assaulted, but he nodded to the man and said courteously:
“Good morning, Mr. Morgan.”
The man did not return the salutation, but said curtly instead: “I want
a copy of your paper.”
Harry stepped to the table, took up one of the extra copies of “The
Coalville News” and handed it to him. The man threw a dime on the table
and turned and walked to the door, then stopped, half-turned toward
Harry and said:
“This article in your paper, this ‘protest’, as you call it, has
occasioned a good deal of adverse comment toward me.”
“Is that so?” remarked Harry.
“Yes, some of the business men came out to the mine yesterday evening
to show me the article and tell me that I had better reconsider and
discharge the foreigners and re-employ the home men. They told me they
had approved of your printing the article, and for me not to be angry
at you individually, as you had interviewed them about it; that it was
what might be called ‘a consensus of opinion’ article, that they all
stood behind you; and they contended that it was a ‘just and right’
view of the matter that is expressed in the article. I maintained, and
still maintain that I have a right to run my business in accordance
with my own ideas, but I’m a citizen here myself. I have my home here,
and I may decide to reconsider the matter of employing the foreign
miners and may discharge them and re-employ the home men. At first I
was pretty angry when I saw this article and I told the committee of
merchants that I considered it unjustifiable meddling with my business.
But there’s the other side to the matter--the way you and the other
business men of the town and most of the people, generally speaking
look at it, and I have changed my mind to some extent, but not totally.
I can see, as you say here in this article and as you told me yourself,
that the throwing of the home men out of employment loses trade to the
home merchants and that makes it logical for them to protest. I’ll
think it over to-day and come to a decision.”
Harry nodded. “I hope you’ll decide to reconsider and re-employ the
local men,” he said.
Morgan made no reply, but opened the door and went out. Tommy Warner
was just coming to work, and met the man on the stairs. He looked at
Harry inquiringly.
“I thought maybe Morgan had come up here to thrash you, Harry,” he said.
Harry smiled and shook his head. “I didn’t quite know about it myself,
Tommy, until after he had shown himself as being in a tolerably
amicable frame of mind.”
“He wanted a copy of the paper.”
“Yes, he bought a copy,” and Harry picked up the dime and placed it in
his pocket.
“Well, I hope it’ll do him some good,” the boy said. “What shall I do
first?”
“You can go to work throwing in the type, Tommy. I’ll show you how it
is done.”
Harry took a sponge and dampened it and then dabbed it down on top
of the type in one of the forms, thus moistening the type. “You can
distribute it better when the type is moist, Tommy, as the type sticks
together and doesn’t fall to pieces so easily,” he explained. “Come
here and I’ll show you how to throw the type in.”
He went to the case and Tommy came and stood beside him. Harry took a
word off the top of the type in his hand, a dozen lines or so, that
he had picked up out of the form on the imposing-stone and placed
it in the palm of his hand. The word that happened to be there was,
“difficult.” “It’s done this way, Tommy,” he said. “See, this is the
word ‘difficult.’ Now you know where the compartments are, in the
case, that contain each of the letters of the alphabet, and all you
have to do is this: Reach out your hand and hold it suspended over
each compartment that contains the type of the letters in the word
you are distributing, and twirl each individual type with your thumb
and fingers, and drop them into the proper compartments, one after
another.” He reached out his hand and poised it over the compartment
holding the type of the letter “d”, and twirling this type with his
thumb and fingers, dropped it into that compartment. Then he moved his
hand till it was over the compartment containing the letter “i”, and
dropped it in like manner, and then on to the compartments, “double-f,
i, c, u, l and t,” thus completing the word. “You see, it’s simple
as can be, Tommy,” he said, “only it takes practice to enable one to
distribute rapidly. That’ll come in time.”
Tommy nodded, and then Harry showed him how to pick up the type out of
the form and place it in the palm of his left hand. The boy took only
six lines, as Harry told him that would be enough to take at first, as
taking too big a handful might result in the type falling apart in his
hand, and becoming “pi,” which is the printers’ detestation. He went to
the case with Tommy.
“What’s the first word?” Harry asked.
“‘Hearing’,” was the reply.
“Slip it off with your thumb and first two fingers.”
Tommy did so.
“Now do the same as I did. Hold your hand over the letter ‘h’
compartment.”
Tommy did as told.
“Now twirl the ‘h’ type with your thumb and finger and drop it into the
compartment.”
Tommy did so, doing it quite well, a little awkwardly of course, but
as well as anyone can do at first, for distributing type is even more
difficult than setting it, and it takes longer to acquire speed; but
when one has acquired the knack of distributing type rapidly it can
be distributed about four times as fast as it is possible to set it.
The work of composition, as type-setting is called, is tedious and
cannot be done very rapidly; slow and careful composition is best, as
it can then be set correctly, and no time is lost. The distributing
can be done much more rapidly, but it is necessary to be careful
in the distributing also, for if the type is thrown into the wrong
compartments, these wrongly-distributed letters would be picked up and
placed in the stick, more errors thus resulting.
“Do the same with each of the type in the word, Tommy,” said Harry,
and Tommy did so, dropping the letters “e, a, r, i, n and g,”
respectively, in the proper compartments.
“That’s the way,” said Harry. “You have the idea, and all you have to
do is to keep at it, and you’ll be able to throw in a lot of type in
a day, even though you haven’t had much experience at the printing
business.”
Harry went down onto the street and into several of the stores to ask
their owners’ opinion as to whether Morgan would reconsider employing
the foreigners. These business men told him they could not say what the
mine manager’s decision would be.
“I’m a little afraid he won’t reconsider,” said Harry to each of these
men, “and if he doesn’t, what will you business men do?”
“He’ll have to reconsider,” each of these men had said.
But he didn’t. He came into town that evening and told the business
men he would not reconsider, that he had a right to run his business
his own way and would not be dictated to. Several of them argued with
him, but to no avail, and after making some purchases at one or two of
the stores, he went to his home. The business men he had talked to,
however, were not satisfied, and went around to all the other business
men and talked the matter over with them, with the result that two of
them came up to the printing office and told Harry they wanted some
posters printed.
“We’re going to call a mass meeting in the town hall this very
evening,” they said. “How soon can you have them printed? There won’t
be much type to set. Here’s the copy.”
The one that had spoken handed Harry a sheet of paper with some
writing on it, and he read the few words written there, which were as
follows: “Mass Meeting! At City Hall at 8 o’clock. Everybody come.
Discharge of forty of our home men by the manager of the Annex Mine to
be discussed. Very important. Come!” This was signed, “Committee.”
“I can set it and print the posters in half an hour,” said Harry. “How
many will you want?”
“Five hundred ought to be enough. We want them distributed into all the
houses. Can your boy do that?” glancing at Tommy.
“He and three other boys will do it,” was the reply. “He’ll get them to
help him, just as they did when they distributed my papers yesterday
afternoon.”
“All right. Attend to it, Weston, and charge it to any of us
merchants. On second thought, it will be better to charge it to me, and
the others will reimburse me.”
“Very well,” said Harry, and the two men hastened out and returned to
their stores.
“You go and get the boys,” said Harry, “so they’ll be here, ready to
distribute the posters as soon as they are printed.”
Tommy nodded and hurried out while Harry went to work setting the
type for the printing of the poster. He had it done by the time Tommy
and the other boys arrived, and locking up the form, he put it on
the job-press, “made ready,” as it is called, viz., he printed one
impression of the type on the tympan sheet, on the platen. This is an
iron frame with a smooth, plane surface of steel, with some paper and a
sheet of cardboard on this plane surface, sufficiently thick so that
it won’t mash the type. It will instead make a nice clean imprint from
the type, inked by rollers rolling across the type’s top. The face
of the type presses firmly against the paper that is placed on the
tympan-sheet, the pressure being automatic, and is between the main
body of the press, with the form in it and this platen-portion, which
works back and forth. The paper and cardboard on the face of this steel
platen are held in place by the tympan-sheet, which is of paper also.
This impression from the type in the form made it possible for Harry
to place the gauge-pins properly, so that the poster-sheet would be
printed with even margins on its top and bottom and sides. The sheets
are placed on the tympan-sheet, against two gauge-pins at the bottom
and one at the left-hand side. The gauge-pins are about an inch long,
are of thin metal, and have a little flange at the top; they project
upward from the surface of the tympan-sheet about a quarter of an inch,
and thus keep the paper sheets being printed from slipping out of place
or having uneven margins.
Having placed the gauge-pins in the tympan-sheet properly, Harry went
right to work printing, and in about twenty-five minutes he had the
five hundred posters printed.
“Take them and distribute them, boys,” he said. “Leave one at each
house, just as you did with the papers yesterday.”
“Shall we leave one at the home of Mr. Morgan?” asked Tommy.
“Yes. He will want to know about it, and we’ll be fair and not do
anything surreptitiously. He may even come to the meeting, and I hope
he will.”
“He’d feel a little bit out of place and ill at ease, I expect,” said
Tommy, “but he may make up his mind to attend the meeting.”
Then the boys hurried out with the posters, which they distributed in
about three-quarters of an hour’s time.
The people were somewhat excited when they read the posters. “A mass
meeting!” they exclaimed, and then to one another they said: “We’ll be
there. It’s to discuss the discharge of the home men from the Annex
Mine. That is such a wrong against our miners that we’ll attend the
meeting and do all we can to help get the wrong righted.”
At eight o’clock the town-hall was crowded almost to overflowing, and
just after Mr. Holman, the dry goods merchant, who had been appointed
chairman by acclamation had called the house to order, Mr. Morgan
entered, and walking up the center aisle, sat down on one of the front
seats.
“Excuse me, Mr. Chairman and you people,” he said, looking around at
the audience, “but I believe I have a right to be heard in this affair,
and that is why I am here. Now go ahead with your meeting.”
“Jinks, he did come!” Tommy Warner whispered to the other three boys
who had helped him distribute the posters, and who were seated back by
the door. “I thought he would!”
Chapter IX
THE MINE DISASTER
Mr. Holman, the chairman, made quite a good speech, explaining the
purpose of the meeting at some length, and stating that it was the
consensus of opinion among the business men that the discharging of
the miners was too serious an injustice to pass unnoticed; and it was
desired to get the opinion of all the people of the town regarding
the matter. He spoke conservatively, as he did not want to hurt the
feelings of Mr. Morgan, but as it was the townspeople’s meeting, called
by the business men, he added that Mr. Morgan was there on his own
responsibility. It was only right therefore that he should be willing
to put up with the explanation, even though adverse to him and to his
interests.
With the explanation of others of the citizens, including those made
by several of the miners who had been discharged and who spoke quite
feelingly, the mine-manager sat through it all, over a period of at
least an hour, without saying a word, and waited, as was right and
proper, till the people had gotten through discussing the matter at
issue. Then Mr. Holman, rising from his chair and looking around over
the room, said:
“I believe everybody has had a say who cares to say anything, other
than Mr. Morgan, and as he is here, we would like to hear what he has
to say.”
“Hear! Hear!” was the cry from many, and others said, “Yes, yes! Let’s
hear from Mr. Morgan!”
Mr. Morgan, although a rather grim-visaged man, smiled. During all that
hour of time he had listened to the explanations and protests against
the home miners being thrown out of employment; and had been cogitating
and turning the matter over in his mind, and had already come to a
decision, for he rose and said briefly:
“I have heard the protests that have been made against the home miners
being thrown out of employment by my employing the foreign miners.
After studying the matter, I have decided to reconsider, and will
discharge the foreigners and re-employ the home men. I’m a home man
myself, since I come to think about it, and wouldn’t like to be thrown
out of employment. The foreign miners don’t like it here very well,
anyhow, they tell me, and won’t mind it so very much. They don’t like
to be so far inland, away from the seaport, New York, as it would cost
them too much to get to the seaport when starting back home to their
native country. They would rather work in the mines in Pennsylvania.
Yes, I have reconsidered, and the foreigners will leave tonight, to
return to Pennsylvania. The local men can all return to work Monday.
Good-night,” and he turned and left the hall.
“Mr. Morgan has decided rightly,” said Mr. Holman, “and I am glad of
it, as are all the rest of you that are here, I’m sure. The meeting is
adjourned.”
The people poured out of the building and made their way to their
homes, discussing the meeting as they went, and all expressed
themselves as glad that Mr. Morgan had considered re-employing the home
miners so that he would have them back at work again Monday morning.
“I thought maybe Mr. Morgan would be angry and cause some trouble
before the meeting was over,” said Tommy to his three confreres
as they walked up the street, “but he didn’t, and turned out to be
reasonable instead.”
“Sure he did,” replied one, “and I guess it’s better that way.”
Perhaps of all who were at the meeting, Harry Weston was the most
pleased by the result. It was his newspaper that had printed the
protest that had resulted in the calling of the mass meeting. Harry
naturally felt pleased that the protest had carried and that Mr. Morgan
would put the local men at work again the coming Monday.
“That makes matters all right again, here in Coalville,” he said to
himself, “and there won’t be so many sorrowful hearts. Well, my paper
has done some good--indeed quite a good deal of good, already, and
that will make it more satisfactory to the people here as they will
subscribe for it more readily and give it better support. That is
business! That’s what I started the paper for, and I’m glad I was lucky
enough to get a chance to have something in the first issue of more
than usual importance. Yes, I think ‘The Coalville News’ is a permanent
fixture in the mining town of Coalville.”
Next day, at Sunday school, Harry sang tenor in the choir, and sang
well. Elsie was quite pleased, and the other members of the choir
seemed glad to have him aid in the singing. In truth the singing was
better balanced and more pleasing, and the people in the church noticed
this fact, and were pleased also.
As on the previous Sunday, Elsie invited Harry to take dinner with
them, and he accepted the invitation and accompanied her home. Her
parents were courteous and friendly to him, and he enjoyed the
good dinner that Mrs. Merwin had prepared. He spent a very pleasant
afternoon, singing an hour or so in company with Elsie, who played her
favorite songs on the piano and sang them. Then they discussed the
matter of the mass meeting, telling Harry that they deemed his paper
was quite largely responsible for bringing this about, that it was
creditable to him and proved that a newspaper is of value to the town
in which it is printed.
Harry told them he was glad they looked at it that way.
They could not persuade Harry to remain to supper, and he left at about
half-past four o’clock and returned to his boarding-house. Mr. Tompkins
was sitting in the front room, reading, but as Harry entered, he looked
up and said:
“Well, the protest you printed in your paper resulted in the home men
being given their situations back again in the mine. I’m glad you
printed it, as it was materially beneficial to those forty miners and
their families. It is to your credit, too, and ought to give you a
feeling of satisfaction.”
“You are right, Mr. Tompkins,” said Harry, “and I’m glad I printed the
protest. Thanks for your kind words,” and he went on upstairs to his
room. The foreign miners left that night, and next morning the forty
home men that had been discharged went back to work in the Annex Mine.
Everything was quiet once again, but at about noon the quiet was broken
by the news that there was a cave-in in the big mine, which was located
about half a mile north of town. It had caved in at about the middle,
so one of the miners informed the townspeople, and those working in the
front portion were separated from those working in the back portion
of the mine by a wall of earth and stone reaching from the floor to
the ceiling. How thick this wall of earth and rocks was could only be
guessed at, the miner said, but it must be at least a hundred feet in
thickness, and perhaps more, as those in front of whom he was one,
could not hear the voices of their fellow miners when they called to
them.
Perhaps the mine had caved in all the way back, he added, in talking to
some of the business men, and in that case the men who had been working
at the back--or about half the total number working in the mine--would
be dead, either crushed or smothered to death by the hundreds of
tons of debris that would be on top of and encompassing them about.
“However, maybe there are only a hundred feet or so of the dirt and
stone,” he said in conclusion, “and in that case we can dig through
in a day or two and save the lives of those who haven’t been crushed
to death. Likely some of the men were caught under the dirt and stone
as it fell, and were killed,” he added. “It came down suddenly, with a
crash, and the men wouldn’t have had time to get out of the way.”
“That is serious indeed,” said one of the business men. “Well, I hope
that there weren’t any of them caught under the falling debris. As for
the others, if they don’t smother and can be gotten out in a day or
two, they will be all right, their worst foe being the lack of food and
water.”
“That’s the way of it,” said the miner, and he hastened back up toward
the mine. Hundreds of people were doing likewise, the news having
become disseminated throughout the town almost in a twinkling. Men,
women and children were hastening to the scene of the disaster.
Harry Weston heard of it, of course, and he told Tommy that he would go
up to the mine at once, and that he could do so also. Then they left
the office and joined the throng hurrying toward the mine.
Harry, as soon as he arrived, interviewed different miners who had been
working in the mine when the cave-in took place, and secured all the
information he could. Men were being sent down in the “cage,” or box
about four feet square that the men use to enter or leave the mine, in
order to commence the rescue work. Harry asked permission to go down
also, as he wanted to see for himself what it looked like. They gave
him permission, as he was the owner of the newspaper, and he went down
with the men.
He had never been in a mine before, so it was all new to him, but there
was really not much to see. The wall of dirt and stones confronting
them was the main point, and the men went right to work digging the
dirt away and shoveling it into the passages leading off from the main
portion of the mine. The stones they carried and threw there also.
Having seen all there was to see, Harry went back up in the cage that
brought down the next lot of men, and when asked what he thought about
it by some of the waiting crowd, he shook his head.
“I don’t know how long it will take to dig through the wall of debris,”
he said, “but that’s all there is to do. I hope none of the miners have
been caught under the debris and killed. It’ll be a sad as well as a
bad affair, if that has taken place.”
The people to whom he was talking nodded their heads, and Elsie Merwin,
who, with her father, was there, nodded and said: “Yes, that will be a
sad affair indeed, if any of the miners have been killed.”
The people who had been drawn there by curiosity withdrew after an hour
or so, and returned to their homes and places of business. Down in the
mine, working with almost feverish energy, the good-hearted people of
this little mining town--workers, miners and volunteers--were digging
away the debris that had fallen into the mine from above and carrying
the rocks and throwing them back by the walls and into the mouths of
the passages leading off from the mine proper.
When evening came these excavators had made considerable headway, but
when they shouted, to try to make the men on the other side of the wall
of debris hear, there was no answer. They shook their heads, for this
indicated either that the cave-in was serious indeed and extended far
back into the rear portion of the mine, or that the imprisoned miners
had been asphyxiated.
Harry and Tommy had returned to the office after an hour or so spent
at the mine. They worked steadily, as usual, and got most all the type
thrown into the cases. Some local news items that Harry had secured
they set up into type-form, a galley and a half in all, which was a
fair beginning.
“There’ll be as much ordinary news this week as there was last,” said
Harry, “and now this mining disaster will be another interesting matter
that will have to be written up and printed. That will make this
second week’s issue of ‘The Coalville News’ interesting. It will also
be good for me, as it will help to show that a paper is worth while to
have in the town, and will make its success all the more certain. I am
sorry the cave-in took place, Tommy, but seeing that it did, I am going
to get as much benefit out of it as I can by writing it up and printing
it.”
“Well, you are running the paper to print the news,” said Tommy, “and
you aren’t to blame for the cave-in having taken place.”
The work of excavating in the mine went on steadily throughout the
night and continued all through the next day and night; and then, early
Wednesday morning the excavators succeeded in making a hole through the
wall of debris. Enlarging it to the diameter of four or five feet,
they entered the portion of the mine back of the wall and found the
miners lying all around in an unconscious condition. They were not
wholly asphyxiated, but were in a pretty serious condition, as a result
of the heavy, gaseous air that they had been breathing during the past
forty hours.
They were gotten out as quickly as possible, and were brought back to
consciousness. When they were all out it was seen that four of the men
who had been working there were missing. They were undoubtedly crushed
to death beneath the tons and tons of earth and stone that had not
as yet been removed. When this was gotten away, underneath it as was
expected, the four miners were found, dead.
They were taken to the homes of their sorrowing families, and next day
were buried in the cemetery northeast of the town.
The mine was cleared of the debris and work resumed, and in the next
issue of “The Coalville News” appeared a two-and-a-half column account
of the mine disaster. It had been carefully written by Harry, and the
people read it with interest. Harry had interviewed quite a number of
miners, securing about all the information there was, and his article
told the whole story in clear and explicit language.
Again “The Coalville News” had scored, and had proven that it was a
boon to the town to have a newspaper.
Chapter X
PLEASED AND ENCOURAGED
Subscriptions to “The Coalville News” were coming in at a good rate.
The first week seventy-three people had come up to the office and paid
a dollar for a year’s subscription and Harry had enrolled their names
in his subscription ledger. This second week was turning out well also,
from the same standpoint, and up to Friday evening he had received
sixty-seven new subscriptions. On Saturday ten more people subscribed.
This was a total of one hundred and fifty.
That was very encouraging for only two weeks, Harry believed, but it
was not enough yet for the purpose he had in view, viz., having “The
Coalville News” entered in the post-office, so that he could send
it to the subscribers through the mails at second-class rates, which
is one cent per pound. He wanted to secure three hundred subscribers
before making application at the post-office for this privilege, and to
this end he put an advertisement in the next week’s issue of the paper,
telling the people that he wanted to secure three hundred subscribers
as soon as possible, so he could send the paper to them through the
mails; and that he hoped they would respond liberally. He stated that
he had already received one hundred and fifty subscriptions, but that
that was only half enough. He told them that he hoped to secure the
other one hundred and fifty subscriptions within the next week or ten
days.
This advertisement, in reading notice or editorial form, had good
results, and during the ensuing week Harry received one hundred and
fourteen subscriptions, which enabled him to print another reading
notice complimenting the people for responding so liberally.
“I only need thirty-six more subscriptions,” he wrote and printed
in the next issue, “and then I will enter ‘The Coalville News’ in
the post-office, get the benefit of second-class rates and send the
paper to the subscribers through the mails. Thanks for subscribing so
liberally, and I hope to receive the thirty-six subscriptions this
week, and don’t doubt that I will do so. Again, thanks.”
The subscriptions came in to the number of forty-six the next week,
and Harry now had three hundred and ten names of bona fide subscribers
enrolled in his subscription ledger. He was well pleased, and going
around to the post-office, had “The Coalville News” entered for
transmission through the mails at second-class rates. When they had
finished printing the paper the next Friday afternoon, instead of
having Tommy and his three boy confreres distribute the papers to the
houses, he told them to take them to the post-office instead. He had
written the names of the subscribers on the papers.
“Go in at the back-door, Tommy,” he said. “They will show you where to
put the papers.”
“All right,” Tommy replied, and then he and the other three boys took
the papers to the post-office.
There was an editorial, or reading notice, in this issue, stating that
the number of subscriptions Harry had desired had been received, and
that the subscribers would receive the paper through the post-office,
that issue and continually thereafter; and he thanked them sincerely
for their patronage, adding that he would try to make “The Coalville
News” always as interesting and newsy as was possible, so that they
would be glad they subscribed.
In addition to the subscriptions to the paper, Harry had quite a lot
of job-printing to do, and when the first of August came he had a
great many bills for advertising and job-printing to collect from the
merchants of Coalville. The first issue of the paper had been printed
June 14, but it was only a little over two weeks till July 1st, so
Harry had decided to wait till August 1st before beginning to collect
from the merchants. He had been so busy the first two weeks that he
did not have time to attend to that end of the publishing business,
although it is most important. But the money that had come in from
subscriptions the first two weeks made it unnecessary to collect for
the advertising and job-printing the 1st of July, so he could wait till
August 1st with safety.
The paper’s advertising columns had been filled all the time during
the six weeks with display advertising. Harry had also secured after
the first issue, quite a lot of pay locals, which, scattered around
among the local news items, were good advertising. Harry had printed
some statements for his own use, in addition to printing jobs for the
merchants.
After all the bills were made out, both for the job-printing he had
done for the merchants, and for advertising, Harry figured up the total
which was quite pleasing to him. He found that he had had patronage
from the business men of Coalville to the amounts as follows:
Display advertising, six issues,
June 14 to July 26, inclusive $78.80
Pay locals, five issues, June 21
to July 26, inclusive 16.40
Job printing, June 14 to July
26, inclusive 52.20
-------
Total $147.40
These were the receipts for six weeks, instead of for only a month,
and the earnings of the printing office, per week, had been not quite
twenty-five dollars. This was nearly one hundred dollars per month,
however, from these two sources, advertising and job printing, and
Harry felt that his paper would pay quite well, even better than he
had expected. Of course he had received an additional three hundred
and ten dollars from subscriptions which, added to the receipts from
advertising and job-printing, amounted to $457.40. But from now on,
there would be an interval of a year before his subscriptions would
be renewed. During that period, therefore, he would have to depend on
advertising and job-printing as his source of income.
Harry printed on the blank upper portion of his statements, the
following:
THE COALVILLE NEWS
A Non-Political Home Newspaper.
Job-Printing a Specialty.
The bills having been made out, Harry went around to the business
houses to make his collections. He had no trouble. The merchants paid
the bills without hesitation, and at the end of about two hours Harry
returned to the printing office with one hundred and forty-seven
dollars and forty cents in his pocket. He had already opened a
checking account in the Citizens’ Bank, with the money received on
subscriptions, and he now filled in a deposit slip of the Citizens’
Bank--he had printed them a lot a few days before--to the amount of
one hundred and forty-seven dollars, placed it and the money between
the leaves of his bank-book and went back downstairs and to the bank
to deposit the amount. It was entered in the bank-book by the cashier,
after which Harry returned to the printing-office feeling quite well
pleased.
“I’ve done pretty well so far, Tommy,” he said. “I guess ‘The Coalville
News’ is going to be a success.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Tommy.
Harry had taken time, the first of July, to send a draft to both
the business houses in Denver that furnished him his paper, for the
newspaper and for job-printing purposes. He had also taken up the
first one of the thirteen-dollar mortgage notes, one of which he was to
pay the first of each month, with six per cent interest added, until
the entire twelve were paid.
Now, however, as a result of having received the $310 on subscriptions,
and as a result of having just collected $147.40 for advertising and
job-printing, Harry decided to pay off the other eleven mortgage-notes
at once. It would be off his mind and would save him several dollars
in interest that he would have to pay if he paid the notes only one at
a time, once per month. Money saved is money earned, and while this
saving in interest would not be very much, it would be something.
[Illustration: “THE COALVILLE NEWS IS GOING TO BE A SUCCESS”]
The type foundry firm had sent the twelve mortgage-notes to the
Citizens’ Bank for collection en seriatum, and Harry had paid the
first one there and knew the other eleven were on file, so he went to
the bank and told the cashier to figure up how much interest would
be due on the other eleven mortgage-notes, figuring the interest to
September 1st. The man did so and told Harry how much interest it would
be. Then Harry told him to add it to the one hundred and forty-three
dollars that the notes totaled, and he would take them all up at once.
The cashier did as Harry said, and then Harry made out a check for
the amount, and the cashier handed him the eleven mortgage-notes,
after having stamped the word, “Paid,” on each with a rubber-stamp.
He bought a draft to the amount that he owed each of the paper houses
for the month of July, then returned to the office and placed the
mortgage-notes in the drawer of his desk. Then he wrote letters to
the paper house firms and enclosed the drafts, and also wrote a letter
to the type foundry firm, telling them that he had succeeded better
than he had expected, that he had taken up the other eleven notes at
the bank, and thanked them for their kindness in having sold him his
printing outfit on such reasonable terms.
On second thought, he went back to the bank and bought a draft for
twenty dollars, which was the cost of a second-hand paper cutter he had
seen at the type foundry when purchasing his outfit; and enclosed the
draft in the letter with instructions to send him the paper cutter.
Then he went down and mailed the letter. He had already mailed the
letters to the paper houses when he went to the bank the second time.
After six weeks of paper-publishing and job-printing experience Harry
now found himself in good condition financially and his paper and
printing business practically an assured success. Quite naturally he
felt pleased and encouraged.
Chapter XI
FIRE
One might suppose that in a small town of the size of Coalville, viz.,
fourteen hundred inhabitants, there would not be much of interest to
print in the paper. But such is not the case. There is always news of
interest to the residents of the town and vicinity. In a small place
they all know one another, their goings and comings, and the doings
of one another are of interest to the rest; hence when the newspaper
appears it is seized and opened up with eager haste and its contents
read with avidity. This is why Harry Weston’s paper, “The Coalville
News,” had made such a success during the six weeks of its existence
as to secure three hundred and ten subscribers and bring into his
money-till three hundred and ten dollars.
There is always some news to print, in fact quite enough to make a
newspaper in a town of the size of Coalville--and indeed in towns
somewhat smaller--a welcome enterprise among the other business
enterprises of the place. For instance, there are as the staple news
items, the activities of the resident citizens; and there is never a
day that some of them are not going somewhere, or someone coming to
see and visit them, either relatives or friends, or both. Then there
are items regarding new buildings and improvements, items regarding
street and sidewalk repairs, the church and Sunday school, the social
societies items, with their intermittent elections of officials. There
are items about the sick and accidentally-injured people. There are the
mass meetings and conventions items, and the secret societies items,
and then there are the elections of the mayor and other city officials,
and the election of three new school trustees each year. Also there
are the death and funeral items, and on the other hand there are the
birth items. The doings of the city officials, who meet usually once
per week, furnish news items of interest, as their deliberations are
related to city improvements, etc., such as the voting of bonds for
the purpose of making the improvements. In fact, there is practically
no end to the items of interest to the people of any town, that can
either be gathered by a diligent editor doing his own reportorial work,
or handed to him by friendly citizens, to be printed in his paper. To
print and publish a country newspaper, as those published in small
towns are called, is a business creditable and indeed worthwhile.
Harry Weston believed this, and was glad he had decided to become a
country newspaper publisher.
It happened that in addition to the general run of news that he had
been printing during the past four weeks, another item of news out of
the ordinary had been preparing during the past month. Coalville was
at the foot of the Raton spur of the Rocky Mountains. All around to
the south, west and north, in a half-circle, was quite a goodly growth
of timber, extending up the mountain halfway to the summit. Day by
day under the hot, burning rays of the summer sun the leaves had been
falling from the trees, and lying two or three inches thick in their
crisp, dry condition. The grass, too, was changed from the green hue of
the month of June to the brown hue of July, during which period the
burning heat from the full-fledged summer sun had dried out all the
native juices in the grass and left it parched.
About the middle of the afternoon of Monday, July the 29th, just as
Harry and Tommy were congratulating themselves on their easy prospects
for getting out the next issue of the paper, a boy came running into
Coalville, with the information that there was a fire raging in the
timber about a mile north of the big mine, which itself was half a
mile to the northward. The remoteness of the fire explained why it had
not been discovered, without doubt. The smoke from the fire, rising
even above the treetops at the point where it was burning, was not as
yet discernible, as the dark background of the timber farther up the
mountain made it almost invisible; but after the boy’s explanation
that a fire was raging up on the mountain-side, it was seen on looking
closely that there was smoke to be seen.
“Fire!” the people exclaimed. “The timber is on fire! That will
be serious to the people residing up there, unless the fire is
extinguished before it gets down to the homes of the miners over on the
north side of the mine!”
This was true. All around, in the edge of the timber north of the big
mine, were the homes of quite a good many of the men who worked in that
mine. A few even of the men working in the Annex Mine resided up in
the edge of the timber beyond the mine, but most of these resided in
Coalville proper, as the Annex Mine was nearer town than the big mine.
Harry was down on the street soon after the boy had reached the town
with the news of the fire, and he hastened to interview him.
“How serious a fire is it, my boy?” Harry asked of the almost
breathless urchin. “Is it likely to get down to the miners’ homes and
burn their houses? Surely it isn’t that dangerous.”
“Yes it is!” was the reply. “It’s burning mighty fast and is coming
right down toward the houses! The old dead leaves and grass burn like
everything, and even old dead limbs and old dead trees are burning!”
“Any of the trees will burn after the fire gets under good headway,”
said one of the men who had gathered to hear what the boy said. “I’ve
seen more than one forest fire, and know how they work. They increase
in volume and intensity rapidly and if not stopped in time they will
get beyond control and carry everything before them. This one had
better be looked after right away. Any delay might result in the homes
of the miners up in the edge of the timber being burned to the ground.”
“That being true, everybody that can do so ought to hasten up there
and help put the fire out,” said Harry. “I’m going. I’ll want the news
of the fire for the paper, anyway, and I can secure the news and help
extinguish the fire at the same time. How do you fight a timber fire?”
“With wet cloths. We’ll have to take pails along. Any old clothing, or
pieces of old carpet will do for cloths.”
“I see,” said Harry. “And couldn’t the fire department brigade do
something, even though it’s a timber fire a mile or more away?”
“If they could get water, they could, as they could play the water up
into the trees with the hose, as well as on the dead leaves and grass
on the ground.”
“Yes, we’re going up there with the hose-reel,” said a man who was
hurrying along, though he stopped long enough to make this statement
and to add: “I’m a fireman. We can get the water. We’ll haul it up in a
wagon, in barrels.”
“That’s a good idea,” said the other man. “I’ll go and get one of my
old coats and a two-gallon pail, and will be up where the fire is in a
jiffy.”
The fireman nodded and hurried on toward the building in which they
kept the hose-reel, and the other man hastened away in the direction of
his home. Leaving the boy who had brought the news of the fire talking
to two or three other boys who had appeared, Harry made his way quickly
up into the printing office.
“There’s a big fire raging up in the timber a mile or so north of the
big mine, Tommy,” he said. “Let’s go up and see what we can do to help
stop it.”
“All right,” was the reply. “I hear the people calling out to each
other.” As was logical, even though he knew of the fire and had heard
the people spreading the news about it, Tommy had remained in the
office and stuck to his work until Harry came.
Harry locked the printing office and he and Tommy hastened away, though
Harry stopped a few moments at the Tompkins home, and got a piece of
old carpet from Mrs. Tompkins, with which to fight the fire.
When Harry reached the scene of the fire he found perhaps a hundred
or more of Coalville’s citizens there, including the firemen with
their hose-reel. They were panting as a result of pulling the reel up
the mountain, but as soon as the wagon came in which there were four
barrels filled with water, they began work.
And work there was in plenty! The fire was blazing fiercely; and it
could be seen that it was going to be a difficult matter to put it out.
It had to be done however, if the miners’ homes were to be saved, and
all who were there, including Harry and Tommy, went to work fighting
the flames.
Quite a good deal of good was done by the people using cloths that had
been dipped in water which was brought in pails from a spring that
was near at hand. But the most effective work of extinguishing the
fire was done by the firemen, who, as soon as the water wagon arrived,
energetically set to work.
The barrels were taken out of the wagon and placed on the ground,
after which a force-pump that had been brought along in the wagon
was brought into requisition, and by its use sufficient pressure was
developed so that quite a strong stream of water could be thrown by
the hose. This was most effective, and by hauling water in several
wagons, and moving the wagon with the force-pump in it along in the
timber, from place to place, the hundred or so people with the damp
cloths also working energetically, the flames were subdued and the fire
extinguished before dark. The fire-fighters, all grimy with smoke and
perspiration, returned to their homes in Coalville, where, after they
had washed off the grime, sat down to supper with the added relish that
their hard work gave them.
The miners’ homes were saved, and if the fire had not been extinguished
before it grew to ungovernable proportions, it would certainly have
burned their houses down.
Harry wrote up the fire, then he and Tommy set the article up in
type-form. On Friday when “The Coalville News” reached the homes of the
people of the town, they read with interest the description of the fire
and the explanation of how it was overcome and extinguished. There was
the usual amount of ordinary news also, and the subscribers were very
well pleased with the paper.
In addition to Harry’s write-up of the fire, there was a “Card of
Thanks” that had been brought in by a committee of three of the miners
who resided in the edge of the timber, and whose homes, and those of
all the other miners residing there, had been saved from burning.
The miners and their families all joined in thanking the people of
Coalville for having put out the fire and thus saved their homes.
Especial mention was made of the firemen whose able work with the hose
and force-pump was mainly responsible for the extinguishing of the
fire. The people with the damp cloths did very good work, however, and
received their proper share of the miners’ gratitude.
Chapter XII
AT THE END OF A YEAR
After this incident of the timber fire, nothing out of the ordinary
took place for quite a while. Week after week went by, with only about
the usual amount of news in the paper. The advertising continued in
about the same volume, the advertising columns being filled each week.
There was considerable job printing to do also, and Harry was quite
well pleased. He and Tommy were kept pretty busy, but they were both
workers and did not mind hustling.
There was quite a good deal of printing, the paper for which had to
be cut from large sheets of paper--small jobs, such as receipts,
notes, checks and deposit slips for the bank, etc. Harry found that
his recently purchased paper-cutter was a big help to him. The type
foundry people had sent it promptly on receiving his letter with the
twenty-dollar draft enclosed. They had thanked him, also, for paying
the other eleven mortgage-notes and taking them up, and congratulated
him on having succeeded better in the newspaper publishing business
than he had expected.
“That is something that seldom takes place,” they wrote, “and the
fact that you have succeeded even better than you had anticipated, is
complimentary and a credit to yourself. It demonstrates that you have
good business qualifications and verifies our belief that such was
the case when we sold you your printing outfit. Whenever you need any
printers’ supplies, all you have to do is to let us know what they are
and we will be pleased to send them to you at once.”
Harry sang in the Sunday school choir regularly, which was a pleasure
to him. He enjoyed the lessons each Sunday, as Mr. Worling, who was
quite an enthusiastic teacher, made them interesting to the members of
his class. There was to be a church social and supper at the church
on Wednesday evening of the first week in October, and Mr. Welborn,
the superintendent of the Sunday school, asked Elsie if she and Harry
Weston would sing a duet, as they were going to have a musical program
in addition to the supper. She told him they would if Harry were
willing. She told her father who was at work in his carpenter shop.
“That will be nice,” he replied. “You and Harry sing splendidly, and
the people will be glad to hear you.”
“Yes, I hope so, and, father, I believe I’ll go up to the printing
office and see Harry about it at once.”
“Yes, go along,” was the reply. “He’ll be glad to sing.”
“I think he will. He’s a little diffident, but he sings in the choir
and it won’t be much more difficult to sing a duet. We’ll sing one of
the songs we’ve sung at home, so it will be easy for him.”
She left the shop and went upstairs into the printing office. Harry was
distributing type, but when Elsie entered he placed the handful of type
back in the form.
“How do you do, Elsie,” he said with a smile. “To what do I owe the
pleasure of this call?”
“I’ve come to ask a favor, Harry,” she said. “Now, please don’t refuse!”
“I don’t think I will refuse,” he said. “But, what is the favor?”
“I want you to sing a duet with me at the social in the church
Wednesday evening. Will you? Mr. Welborn, the superintendent of our
Sunday school, asked me if we would. He’s looking after the music
program.”
“Certainly I’ll sing with you, Elsie,” said Harry. “I’ll be glad to.”
“Thanks. I knew you would. Come to our home early Wednesday evening,
and we’ll practice the song once, then we can go to the church
together.”
“Very well. I’ll be there.”
“Thanks, and good-bye till we see each other again.”
He told her good-bye and she went back to the carpenter shop, where she
told her father that Harry had said he would sing with her.
Her father nodded. “I knew he would,” he said.
Then she went home and told her mother that she and Harry Weston were
to sing a duet at the church social Wednesday evening.
“That’ll be nice,” her mother said.
When Wednesday evening came, Harry was on hand at Elsie’s home.
Elsie and Harry sang the song through and when they had finished she
asked her parents:
“How did that sound?”
“Splendid!” her mother replied.
“Quite good indeed,” her father said. “I don’t think you need fear but
that the audience will appreciate your singing.”
“That’s what we want it to do,” Elsie said with a smile.
They all four went to the church together, and found it quite
well-filled. Harry had been in Coalville long enough now to be well
acquainted, especially with the people of this church, as he sang in
the choir every Sunday and conversed with different people, all of whom
had a pleasant word for him. In truth they were not only friendly to
the young newspaper publisher, but admired him as well, both on account
of his business abilities and because of the fact that he was a nice
young man with sterling qualities.
There were several musical numbers on the program; and when it came
time for Elsie and Harry to sing, they sang so well that in spite of
the fact that they sang in the church the applause was quite generous.
When the music program was finished, supper was served and Harry and
Elsie sat together at the improvised table, which consisted of some
wide boards laid on some small trestles borrowed from Mr. Merwin’s
carpenter shop.
The social was indeed a success, and all went home feeling well
pleased, as was right and proper, for that is what church socials are
for. Harry and Elsie especially, were happy, and Elsie evidenced this
when she said to Harry, as they were walking home:
“I didn’t know we could sing so well, Harry! Aren’t you glad we sang?”
“Certainly,” said Harry. “Yes, I am glad to have helped make the social
a pleasing affair, and of course you are glad to have done so, too.”
“Quite surely that is the case,” Elsie replied. “Well, they’ll be
wanting us to sing every little while through the fall and winter. That
is when they have most of their social events, and as we have sung once
they will want us to do so again. We wouldn’t want to sing any one song
till it became so well known to the hearers as to sound old. You can
come over evenings, Harry, and we will pick out some songs. I have a
stack of music a foot and a half high and we can find some good ones
in it, I am sure.”
“Very well. I will drop around once or twice a week, Elsie. I don’t
doubt but that you will find some good songs among so many. As you say,
it will be well to know quite a few songs if we are to sing very often.
I shall always be ready to sing with you whenever they want us to sing.”
“Good!” said Elsie. “That will be splendid.”
The next issue of “The Coalville News” contained a write-up of the
social at the church, and the account that Harry had written and
printed was read with interest by the subscribers. Each number of the
music program was mentioned, with the name or names of the person or
persons who rendered the numbers, his and Elsie’s names among the
others.
Harry went around to the Merwin home two or three evenings of each of
the two ensuing weeks, and they picked out half a dozen good songs and
began practicing.
“We’ll be able to sing at the socials when we get these songs learned,”
said Elsie the evening they completed the work of searching out the
songs, “and we will be singing something new nearly every time; then
they won’t get tired of hearing us.”
They did sing at all the socials held in the church and the homes of
friends of the Merwins. They were the most popular musical entertainers
in Coalville, though Charley Martin, who sang bass in the choir, and
Annie Carlton, who also sang in the choir and was one of Elsie’s
friends, ran them a close race.
The winter passed away, spring appeared and “The Coalville News” was
getting along well. By this time it had been published long enough so
that its readers regarded it as a part of their home life, and would
not have been without it for anything. It was looked upon as a fixture,
and was indeed considered one of the established business enterprises
of the town.
Indeed it had done so well that a man who happened to visit Coalville
one day, and who had at one time been in the newspaper publishing
business, came up to the printing office and after looking around a
little and talking with Harry, offered to buy the business.
“I’ll give you a thousand dollars for it, young man,” he said. “Your
press is only a hand-press, and your job-press and most of your type
are second-hand, but I used to be in the paper publishing business and
recently a desire to get back into it again has taken hold of me. If
you want to accept my offer, which I consider pretty liberal, even
though your business is paying quite well, I am informed by some of
the business men that all you have to do is to say so and the thousand
dollars is yours,” and he drew a check-book from his pocket and held
it up so Harry could see it. “I have three thousand dollars on deposit
in the bank in Denver,” he continued, “but if you don’t want to accept
the check I will get the money for you right down in your bank here in
Coalville, as the cashier knows me and I can get him to let me have the
money. What do you say?”
Harry looked at the man a few moments and then shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I won’t sell the paper. I wouldn’t sell it for twice a
thousand dollars, though one thousand is as you have said, as much as
it is worth, from a financial standpoint. But it is worth much more
than that to me, for the reason that Coalville is my home. If I sold my
paper I would have to go away from here and start anew somewhere else,
which is something I wouldn’t like to do. No, I won’t sell, sir, thank
you for your offer just the same.”
The man nodded and put the check-book back in his pocket.
“All right,” he said. “You know your own affairs of course, and I don’t
blame you for not wanting to sell, now that you have become established
here, have made friends and look upon the place as your home. However,
if you ever do want to sell, just drop a line to that name and address,
and I’ll come and buy you out, unless I have gone into something else,”
and he handed Harry a card with his name and address on it, after which
he took his departure.
“I’m glad you didn’t sell the paper, Harry,” said Tommy.
Harry nodded. “I told him the truth, Tommy, when I said I wouldn’t sell
the paper for twice a thousand dollars. I like the newspaper business.
It has variety and interest and the work isn’t too hard; and as I told
him, Coalville is my home, the only home I have in fact; and I would be
hurting my own feelings too seriously if I sold the paper.”
“That’s a good way to look at it,” agreed Tommy.
Somebody else told him the same thing that evening. It was Elsie, who
was at the door of her father’s carpenter-shop when Harry came along
on his way to his boarding-place. She had heard that a man had offered
Harry a thousand dollars for his paper, and the first words she said to
him were:
“I’m glad you didn’t sell your paper, Harry! Father told me a man
wanted to buy it.”
“No, I didn’t sell the paper, Elsie, and wouldn’t do so, not even
for three times the price he offered me, for I don’t want to leave
Coalville. It’s my home, and home’s the dearest place on earth.”
“So it is,” was the reply, “and I’m glad that you don’t want to leave
Coalville and that you look upon it as your home.”
“Thanks,” Harry said.
Then she went back into the shop and Harry continued on to his
boarding-house.
Mr. Tompkins had heard that someone had tried to buy Harry’s printing
business and newspaper, and when Harry came in, he said:
“I understand you had an offer for your paper this afternoon, but
that you refused to sell. I’m glad you refused,” he continued, as
Harry nodded. “I don’t think a new man would be able to get out a
better paper than you do, and we like you, we people of Coalville, and
consider you one of us and would hate to lose you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tompkins,” said Harry. “I look upon Coalville as my
home and intend to remain here.”
“It’s a pretty good town,” was the reply, and he resumed reading his
daily newspaper that came from Denver each evening, and Harry went on
up to his room.
March passed away, and then April, and May, and then June came.
And with the second week’s issue in that month Harry’s paper, “The
Coalville News,” was one year old. Harry was eighteen years old when he
started the paper and he was now nineteen years of age. The paper was
doing well, the merchants were advertising quite liberally, there was a
steady run of job-printing, and Harry was quite satisfied.
Although it was a coal-mining town, Coalville was a pretty place
and Harry felt that he would be satisfied to reside there, so after
deliberating awhile, he went to the officials of “The Coalville
Building & Loan Association” and told them he wanted a house built on
the building-and-loan plan. The salient feature of this plan is that
the patron is permitted to pay for a house on the installment plan, so
much per month, “just like rent,” as the advertisements say. In due
time, after a certain number of months has elapsed, it is found that he
has “paid out,” and the house is his.
“The money I pay to you each month will be just that much saved,” said
Harry, “and then if ever I do want a house to move into, I’ll have it.”
The official nodded and said he was wise, and that it was a very good
way to save money. “And besides, you’ll need the house in due time,”
said one of them with a smile, who knew Harry quite well. “With you
such a good-looking, bright and business-like young man, it could
hardly be otherwise than that some nice girl will bless you for the
foresight that caused you to have a house already built and ready for
occupancy.”
Harry smiled and blushed a little, but took the jovial remark of the
man in good part, then filling in and handing him a check for the
initial payment, he took his departure.
“A bright young fellow, Weston,” said one of the other members of the
Building and Loan Association.
“Indeed he is!” said the one who had teased Harry, “and just full of
business and good, hard common sense besides.”
And now, with a year’s experience in the printing and publishing
business behind him and the future all before him, Harry Weston
started in on the second year of his publishing venture. He had not
failed, but had succeeded instead, because of his industry, integrity,
fair-mindedness, courtesy and various other good qualities. That is
why, also, that he was, at the end of the first year and the beginning
of the second--still in business.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
‣ Italics represented with surrounding _underscores_.
‣ Small caps converted to ALL CAPS.
‣ Some illustrations relocated to a relevant paragraph break.
‣ Obvious typographic errors silently corrected.
‣ Variations in hyphenation kept as in the original.
‣ Spelling of Welborn/Welborne standardized to Welborn.
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