MAKING GOOD PROGRESS
Next day Harry went to work setting the advertisements. It was slow
and somewhat tedious work, but he had set jobs and some advertisements
in the office of the weekly paper in Allentown, and had made good
progress. In fact he set at least one-third of the advertisements
that day, and put them on brass galleys. All his galleys were filled,
however, and so along toward evening he placed the two seven-column
chases on the imposing stone. The chases are strong iron frames, in
which the type-forms are placed and locked up, as it is termed, and
thus made ready to put on the press.
Next he took the long composing-stick, and adjusted it to the width of
the seven-column page, viz., ninety-four picas, as it is called in
printers’ parlance. There are six picas to the inch, and the width of a
seven-column page is fifteen and two-thirds inches. He then selected a
nice, plain, clean-faced type thirty-six point in size, from among his
job and advertising type fonts and set up the heading of the paper: THE
COALVILLE NEWS.
This he placed in one of the chases, and then sawing a piece of
pica-thickness reglet--maple wood--the proper length, fifteen and
two-thirds inches, he placed this next to the heading of the paper.
Then he placed a double-line head-rule next to the reglet, after which
he set: Vol. I, No. 1. at the end of the stick. Then he put in some
two- and three-em quads. These are metal the same thickness as the
type, but not so high, coming up only about three-fourths of the
height of the type, thus not receiving any ink when the form is inked
and consequently not printing, the result being blank space.
He then set the words: Coalville, Colorado, Friday, June 14, 19--.
More quads were placed in the stick then, and over at the farther
end were set the words: Price, Three Dollars Per Year. This line of
type, called the date-line, he placed next to the pica-reglet. Cutting
another length of pica-thickness reglet, Harry placed it next to the
date-line, after which he placed another double-line head-rule next to
the pica-reglet.
He then put in the column-rules. These were brass, and of course
extended vertically, up and down the length of the chases, and fitted
neatly against the lower head-rule. He put in some wooden blocks, a
column wide, between the column-rules, to keep them from falling down
flat, as they were only six points, which is one-twelfth of an inch,
in thickness. His advertisements, however, were mostly two columns
in width, and so he took out the first column-rule at the left-hand
side, and one after another he set the advertisements in between the
column-rules. This is called “making up the forms,” and applies to both
reading matter and advertisements.
Having filled the first two columns, he took the column-rule out at
the right side, and filled those two columns with advertisements about
one-fourth of the way down, that being all the advertisements he had
set. At the center of the form, and between these two double-column
rows of advertisements were four column-rules, and between these four
column-rules were three columns of space. This space Harry intended to
be mostly for reading matter, though he might put a few single-column
advertisements at the bottom of one of the columns, and reaching up
halfway. This would leave reading matter three columns wide, which he
believed would look quite well.
He had made good progress and felt quite well satisfied, and next day
he set about half of the remaining number of advertisements. In the
evening he filled the two columns that had not been filled, and having
several more advertisements than would go on that page, he made up the
other form for receiving them. This was more easy than the first form
had been, as setting the name of the paper and the date-line had made
it difficult. This other form had no heading. All he had to do was to
place the double-line head-rule against the chase at the top, and
put in the column-rules, blocking them with the wooden blocks--called
“furniture”--in between the column-rules to keep them from falling
down. However, he took out the column-rule at the left-hand side,
making a two-column space and set in the other advertisements, filling
it about one-third of the way down.
Next day he finished setting the rest of the advertisements and placed
them in the form, filling out the double-column space; also he set into
each of the forms about half a column of single-column advertisements.
This finished the advertisement-setting, as there was no more copy.
The next thing to do was to begin on the work of securing and setting
the reading matter. It was only about one o’clock, and Harry sat down
and wrote a salutatory, brief and carefully worded. This he set in
type form in half an hour and placed it on a galley, after which he
put on his coat and hat and went down onto the street, taking along
a notebook and pencil. He went into the stores, the real estate and
insurance offices, and to the city clerk’s office, and got news items
from the clerks when they were not busy waiting on patrons, and from
the city clerk. He also went upstairs into the doctors’, lawyers’ and
dentists’ offices, where he also secured quite a few items. Then with
his notebook almost filled, he went back to the printing-office to work
at setting the news items. He set all of these before evening, then he
laid the composing stick on the type-case and drew a breath of relief.
“Another good day’s work done,” he concluded. “I have done better
than I expected, and I see now that I can get the paper out easily by
next Friday afternoon. I have somewhat more than a column and a half
of news matter set, and all the advertisements. That leaves only six
columns of news matter still to secure and set, and I can do that in
five days, I am sure. Besides I will get a twelve or fourteen-year-old
boy to help me on Monday, and he can set some type. Yes, I’ll surely be
able to get out the paper by next Friday.”
Putting on his hat and coat he went out, locked the door and made his
way downstairs and along the street. He had gone only a little way when
he met a boy of about twelve years. Harry liked the boy’s appearance.
He was bright-looking and alert, and was undoubtedly intelligent.
Stopping him Harry said courteously: “Excuse me, my boy, but I wish to
ask you a question, if you are not in a hurry.”
The boy stopped and looked at Harry. “What is it?” he asked.
“I am Harry Weston, the owner of the printing-office upstairs over
the Gebhart grocery store, and I am in need of a boy to help at the
printing work. How would you like to learn the printing business? It’s
a good trade, it is skilled labor and you can learn it gradually; and I
will pay you for your work at the same time.”
The boy looked at Harry, evidently interested.
“I might like the printers’ trade quite well,” he said. “I might work
for you, but I couldn’t say right now, as I would have to ask my father
about it first. Warner is my name, Tommy Warner. My father owns a
hardware store.”
“I know your father,” said Harry. “He has an advertisement in my paper
that is to be issued next Friday. Ask him about working for me, Tommy,
and if he is willing for you to do so, come around to my office Monday
morning about eight o’clock. Ask him, also, what wages he will be
willing for you to work for. I’ll pay you fair wages.”
“All right,” said Tommy. “I’ll ask him this evening, and will let you
know Monday morning.”
“That will be satisfactory.”
Then Tommy went on down the street and Harry continued on in the
direction of his boarding place. As had transpired a few evenings
before, however, just as he reached the Merwin carpenter shop, Elsie
emerged.
“Good evening, Harry,” she said. “How are you coming on with your work?”
“Good evening, Elsie. I am doing quite well with my work. I have all
the advertisements set and about a column and a half of reading
matter. I gathered some news items this afternoon and set them in
type-form.”
“Good. I am glad you are doing so well, and by the way, since you have
mentioned gathering news items, that makes me think that I might help
you in that. I could get quite a lot of items without much trouble and
would be glad to do so.”
“That would be kind of you, and I would appreciate it very much. As
I don’t know very many people here, it is hard for me to get news.
Thank you for offering to help me. Having the news in the paper is an
important matter, as that is what the people look for and expect to
find. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t care about subscribing. That makes
it an important matter to me at any rate,” and he smiled.
“True,” she said, smiling also. “Very well, I’ll get all the items
I can for you. By the way, I want to ask if you are going to attend
Sunday school?”
“I hadn’t given that matter any thought,” he replied, “but I guess I
will do so. I can get up early enough, even though I am pretty tired.
I want to attend the same Sunday school that you go to, Elsie, and I’m
glad you mentioned the matter, as I can go to Sunday school first. If
you hadn’t mentioned it I might have gone to some other church, and
after attending some other Sunday school even once, they might not have
liked it if I had changed to another.”
“True,” she agreed, “so I’m glad I mentioned the matter. I attend the
Baptist Sunday school.”
“I’ll be there to-morrow. What time does Sunday school begin?”
“At nine o’clock. I’ll look for you.”
Then she went on down the street, and Harry made his way to his
boarding-house, went to his room, washed his face and hands, went
downstairs and ate supper.
“Knock on my door at half-past seven in the morning, please, Mrs.
Tompkins,” he said as he was starting upstairs to his room. “I am going
to go to Sunday school.”
“Very well, I will do so,” replied Mrs. Tompkins. And then to her
husband, who was seated in a rocking-chair, reading, she said as Harry
disappeared up the stairs: “I tell you, John, that’s a mighty good
young man.”