HARRY’S
NEWSPAPER

HARRY’S NEWSPAPER

or

The Young Publisher

By

Stephen A. D. Cox

Illustrations By

Willard G. Smythe

CHICAGO

Printed in the U. S. A.

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.

[8]

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.

CONTENTS

 

[13]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[14]

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 [16] 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.

[17]

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.

[18]

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.”

[19]

“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 [20] 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.”

[21]

“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, [22] 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 [24] 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.

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 [25] 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,” [26] 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?”

[27]

“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 [28] 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.

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 [30] 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 [31] 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 [32] 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. [33] 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 [34] 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.

[35]

“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 [36] 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 [37] 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 [38] 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 [39] 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 [40] 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 [41] 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 [42] 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.

[43]

[44]

“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 [45] 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 [46] 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.

[47]

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.

[48]

“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 [49] 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.

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.

[51]

“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 [52] 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 [53] 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, [54] 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.”

[55]

“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 [56] 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 [57] 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 [58] 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 [59] 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 [60] 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, [61] 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 [62] 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.”

[63]

“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.

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 [65] 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 [66] 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 [67] 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 [68] 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 [69] 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 [70] 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 [71] 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.”

[72]

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 [73] 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 [74] 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.

[75]

“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?”

[76]

“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.”

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.

[78]

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 [79] 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.

[80]

“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.

[81]

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, [82] 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.”

[83]

[84]

“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 [85] 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 [86] 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. [87]“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 [88] 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.”

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 [90] 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.”

[91]

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 [92] 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 [93] 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 [94] 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 [95] 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.

[96]

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 [97] 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. [98]“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 [99] 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, [100] 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.

[101]

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 [102] 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 [103] 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 [104] 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 [105] 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 [106] 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.”

[107]

[108]

“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 [109] 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 [110] 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.

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 [112] 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 [113] 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 [114] 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.

[115]

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 [116] 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, [117] 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 [118] 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 [119] 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 [120] 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 [121] 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.”

[122]

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 [123] 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 [124] 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 [125] 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 [126] 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!”

[127]

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 [128] 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 [129] 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 [130] 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.”

[131]

“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 [132] 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 [133] 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.

[134]

“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, [135] 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.

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:

[137]

“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, [138] 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 [139] 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.”

[140]

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 [141] 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 [142] 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 [143] 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 [144] 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.

[145]

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 [146] 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 [147] 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 [148] 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 [149] 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 [150] 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 [151] 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!”

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.

[153]

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 [154] 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 [155] 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 [156] 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 [157] 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 [158] 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 [159] 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 [160] 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 [161] 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 [162] 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 [163] 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 [164] 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.

[165]

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 [166] 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 [167] 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 [168] 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.

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 [170] 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 [171] 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 [172] 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 [173] 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 [174] 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:

[175]

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 [176] 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 [177] 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 [178] 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.

The type foundry firm had sent the twelve mortgage-notes to the Citizens’ Bank for collection en seriatum, and [180] 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 [181] 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 [182] found himself in good condition financially and his paper and printing business practically an assured success. Quite naturally he felt pleased and encouraged.

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 [184] 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 [185] 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 [186] 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 [187] 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 [188] 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 [189] 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 [190] 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 [191] 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 [192] 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 [193] 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 [194] 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, [195] 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 [196] 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.

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 [198] 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 [199] 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.”

[200]

“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 [201] 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.

[202]

“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. [203] 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 [204] 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 [205] 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.

[206]

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 [207] 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. [208] 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 [209] 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.

[210]

“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:

[211]

“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 [212] 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 [213] 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 [214] 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.

[215]

“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