BUSY DAYS
Next morning Harry was at the printing office by half-past seven, and
at about eight o’clock Tommy Warner appeared, as he had promised to do.
“What did your father say?” asked Harry. “Is he willing for you to work
for me here in the printing office and learn the printers’ trade?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “He said he guessed it would be as good a trade
as I could learn.”
“What wages did he say you might work for?”
“He said for me to tell you that if you can afford to pay me three
dollars a week, that would be satisfactory, and that he supposes I can
earn that much.”
“Certainly you can, Tommy. That will be all right, and I’m glad your
father is willing for you to work here. I need someone to help me. I
could hardly do all the work myself.”
“So I would suppose.”
“You can set some type, right from the very first, and all that you set
will be that much help. I have some items here that you can work on
while I go down and look for more news. I want to get all the news I
can, each day, and keep it set up in type form; then we will have quite
a newsy paper when publishing day comes.”
Tommy hung up his hat and coat, and went to the cases where the type
was.
“You’ll have to have a box to stand on,” said Harry. “You aren’t tall
enough to reach the type in the cases. Run down into the store and ask
Mr. Gebhart if you can have a carton. Tell him it’s for the printing
office and to charge it to Harry Weston.”
Tommy nodded and hurried downstairs, returning a few minutes later with
a wooden box about eighteen inches high, which he placed on the floor
in front of the rack holding the type-cases, and stepping onto it, he
found that he could see and pick up the type nicely.
Harry took the composing-stick in his hand, put the composing-rule in
it, and then set a line of the news item, the copy for which he had
placed on the case. He set the type slowly, so Tommy could see how it
was done, and made such explanations as were necessary. He explained
the use of the spaces, one of which is placed between each word, so
they would not be all strung along together, in which form they could
hardly be read. After he had set the line, he showed Tommy how to read
the line, beginning at the left-hand side and reading across, the
same as in the printed page, with this difference, that the type is
bottom-side up, this making it somewhat harder to read, but quite easy
after one has had a little practice.
“If you get a wrong letter in a line,” explained Harry, “correct it
before setting the next line. Some compositors, in fact most of them,
never correct the type they have set until after it has been put on the
galley and a proof taken. Then it is hard work and takes more time, and
they are liable even then to ‘pi’ some of it. That means that the type
is liable to fall down and become mixed up, and sometimes has to be
set over again. By correcting each line as soon as it is set, you make
hardly any errors and don’t have to do any correcting on the galleys,
and the type doesn’t ‘pi’. I always correct each line as soon as I set
it, and I never have to do any correcting on the galleys. You had
better do that way, too, Tommy.”
“Very well,” said the boy, and then he took the stick in his hand when
Harry handed it to him and began setting type. He had seen how Harry
did it. Tommy did the same, though of course he was much slower. But
he did quite well and his instructor could see that Tommy would soon
become quite a good typesetter.
“That’s all there is to it,” said Harry with a smile, as he was putting
on his coat and hat. “Just keep picking up the type and putting them in
the stick. I’ll be back before you will get the stick set and will show
you how to ‘dump’ it, as taking the type out of the stick and putting
it on the galley is called.”
“All right,” was the reply, and Harry took his notebook and pencil and
went downstairs and onto the street and began his rounds of the stores
and city offices in his search for news items.
He returned to the office in about an hour with a new lot of items, and
found that Tommy had set almost a stickful. Taking it from the boy’s
hand, Harry pushed the composing-rule down behind the first line of
type that had been set. There were leads between each line, and the one
in front of the last line that had been set held the type in place, and
Harry lifted the type--there were sixteen lines--out of the stick and
placed it on a galley.
“You can do that after a little practice with a few lines at a time,”
he said to Tommy. “From now on you can dump your own type, and during
the first week at any rate, I wouldn’t try to lift more than seven or
eight lines at a time, out of the stick.”
“Very well,” said Tommy. He seemed pretty well pleased with his new
work, and taking the stick when Harry handed it to him, went ahead
setting type.
Harry had had forethought enough to purchase two small composing-sticks
and two composing-rules, so he took the other stick and rule and went
to work setting type at the other case. When he had set the bulk of the
news items he had secured, he put on his hat and coat and went out to
complete the rounds of the places where he secured news. He had only
gone about halfway around the first time.
He was back again in about an hour, and in addition to the news items,
he had secured a job of printing from one of the merchants, Mr. Holman,
who owned a dry goods store. He wanted five hundred letterheads and
five hundred envelopes, with his business advertisement on each.
Harry hung the news items on the “live copy” hook, and then went to
work setting the two jobs. This he accomplished in about an hour and a
half, and by this time it was noon.
“We’ll go to dinner now, Tommy,” he said. “We’ve done enough work for
one morning.”
Tommy nodded and smiled and put the stick up on the case, donning his
hat and coat at the same time Harry did, and they left the office
together, Harry locking the door. “Come back at one o’clock, Tommy,” he
said. “From eight till twelve are the morning hours, and from one till
five in the afternoon, with one hour for dinner. That is eight hours of
working time, and we ought to be able to get out the paper each week
and do what job printing there will be to do, working eight hours per
day. If we ever do happen to get behind and have to work later, I will
pay you for the extra time you work.”
“That is all right,” said Tommy, and parting at the foot of the stairs,
they went their ways, Tommy to his home and Harry to his boarding-house.
That afternoon Harry printed the five hundred letter-heads and the five
hundred envelopes. The different kinds of stock for the job printing
department--letter-heads, envelopes, statements, etc.--had arrived
Saturday afternoon, and Harry had stacked the packages up in one corner
of the room without opening them.
Then he helped Tommy set the rest of the news items, and they were
finished by five o’clock.
“We’ve done a good day’s work, Tommy,” said Harry, as they were leaving
the office. “I believe we’re two pretty good printers,” and he smiled.
“There’s nothing like believing in one’s own abilities,” he added,
“and if anybody doesn’t brag about us, we can do it ourselves.”
“Yes,” said Tommy, and he went on down the street toward his father’s
store, while Harry made his way up the street in the other direction.
Elsie Merwin was standing in the door of her father’s carpenter shop
when he reached there.
“You’re just the person I wish to see, Harry,” she said. “Here are some
local news items I secured for you. I wrote them down and intended to
bring them to your office, but was busy and could not do so.”
“Thanks very much, Elsie,” said Harry, as she handed him the news
items. “We just finished setting all that I had gotten in the stores
and offices, and these will do to begin work on in the morning. Thank
you very much indeed.”
“I’m glad to be of help to you, and will get all the news I can,
regularly. It’s a pleasure to me.”
Her father called to her at that moment, and with a nod and a smile she
went back into the shop, while Harry went on to his boarding-house.
The next day’s work at the printing office was about the same as the
day before.
“We’ll have enough type set to fill the paper by Thursday,” Harry said.
“Then we can go to press Friday morning, and that will give us all day
to get the papers printed. I expect we will need that much time, for
we have two forms to print from, and can only print one at a time, and
there will be four hundred and eighty papers to print. As we will have
to run them through twice, that will be the same as if we had nine
hundred and sixty papers to print, and only have to run them through
once.”
Next day they set all the news there was, and Harry did a job of
printing for Mr. Gebhart, the groceryman--five hundred statements;
he also made up the two forms, as putting the type in between the
column-rules is called. He didn’t have type enough to fill all the
space as yet. There was about a column and a half of space still to
fill, but he was sure they would have enough news items for it. If not,
he could write an article about the town, something complimentary that
would please the people, and this could be set and put in to fill up
with.
But he didn’t have to write that kind of an article after all, for an
event took place that furnished something far more interesting to write
about.
It was Mr. Tompkins who gave him the information. He was a miner,
working in the smaller of the two mines that were being operated in
Coalville. The manager of this mine was a somewhat hard-headed, stingy
man--so Mr. Tompkins declared--by the name of Morgan. He had had a
number of foreigners shipped from New York--and was going to give
them work in the mine, as they would work for smaller wages than the
American miners already working there. There were seventy-five in all,
and while Morgan would probably not discharge that many of the men
already working for him, he would discharge some of them.
“I may lose my job for all I know,” said the miner, with a sober look
on his face. “Morgan and I don’t exactly agree, but I’m a good, strong
man and able to do my full share of the day’s work, so he may not
discharge me. Some of the men’ll have to go, though, unless Morgan can
be induced not to give the foreigners work after all. I wish it could
be done, but I don’t know whether it can or not, for he’s hard-headed
and set in his ways.”
“That is a pretty bad state of affairs for you home men,” said Harry,
sympathetically. “As a citizen of Coalville, and naturally with my
sympathies on the side of the home miners, both for their sakes and
mine, I am willing to do what I can to try to prevent the foreigners
from going to work more cheaply than the home miners, thus throwing
some of them out of employment.” He paused and looked thoughtful for a
few moments and then said:
“I am going to publish a newspaper here, and as newspapers are
influential, I don’t know but that I will inquire into this affair as
thoroughly as I can, then publish an article protesting against the
home miners being thrown out of employment. Don’t you think that would
be a good idea, Mr. Tompkins?”
“Yes, sir. Do it, young man!” said the miner. “I’ll stand by you, and
so will all the other miners. Print a protest. When does your paper
come out?”
“Friday.”
“And to-day’s only Wednesday. I’m afraid the paper will be out too late
and the protest not be of much avail. However, look into the matter,
and if you do print it, even though it’s a day late, we may be able to
oust the foreigners, even after they’ve begun work.”
“All right, I’ll see to it and will investigate the matter in the
morning.”
Harry made the rounds of the business houses next morning, beginning
at half-past seven, and asked the merchants what they thought of the
matter, telling them how Morgan, the manager of the mine--the Annex as
it was called, as it was small compared to the main mine and subsidiary
to it--was putting in a lot of foreigners and discharging some of the
home men working there. The merchants, almost to a man, said they
thought it was not right and very unfair; they deplored it and wished
that it might be prevented.
“The home miners all have families and patronize our stores, spending
all their earnings here, while the foreigners are single men and
would not spend much money with us,” one merchant said, and when
Harry mentioned this to the others they all agreed. “We don’t like
the foreigners to be given work and our own men deprived of their
situations,” another merchant said. That was the general verdict among
all the business men of the place.
Having learned this, Harry told them that he would write and print the
next day in the forthcoming issue of the new paper a protest against
the foreigners being given work at the expense of a number of the home
miners who would be thrown out of employment. Somebody must have told
Morgan about this, for just as Harry had gotten through interviewing
the merchants and was about to go upstairs to his office, he was
confronted by a dark-visaged, dangerous-looking man, who asked abruptly:
“Are you Weston, who is going to print a newspaper here?”
Harry nodded. “I am,” he replied.
“I hear you are going to print a protest against my putting some
foreigners to work in my mine--seventy-five of them there are, that I
ordered sent here from New York.”
“You are Mr. Morgan?” queried Harry.
“I am.”
“Do you own the mine?”
The man hesitated. Then he said: “Not totally. I own it partly and am
its manager.”
Harry thought a few moments and then asked: “In case those foreigners
work in your mine, how many of the home men will be thrown out of
employment?”
“The foreigners are already at work. I just started them in, in the
mine. I have already discharged forty of the men who have been working
there, and may discharge more.”
“The foreigners work more cheaply, I hear. That’s the point, as you
look at the matter.”
[Illustration: “THEN LOOK OUT FOR YOURSELF, YOUNG MAN”]
“That’s the point.”
“But think of the families of the forty miners whom you have
discharged. They might starve.”
“The men can get work in the other mine, likely.”
Harry shook his head. “I inquired about that. They have all the men
they need already working there.”
The man shrugged his shoulders. “They can move away to some other
mining region, and get work.”
Harry shook his head. “They own their homes here,” he said, seriously,
“and don’t want to move away, and it is costly moving from place to
place.”
Again the man shrugged his shoulders. “That’s their own affair,” he
said. “And discharging them is my own affair.”
Harry shook his head. “I’m not a lawyer,” he said, “but my common
sense tells me that it is somewhat the affair of nearly everybody in
this place, both of the men that have been discharged and especially
of the merchants. The men, having lost their situations, will not be
earning anything. They cannot patronize the merchants, as they wouldn’t
have any money to pay for the merchandise. The merchants will lose the
profits they would have made off the goods sold while the men were
working and earning their usual wages. Thus the merchants are injured
financially, while the miners are indeed in serious circumstances. I
wouldn’t keep the foreigners working, Mr. Morgan, if I were you, and I
would give back their situations to those forty home miners.”
The man shook his head. “I am going to keep the foreigners working, and
of course won’t give the old men their situations back, as I won’t
need them,” he said.
“Then I am going to write and print a protest in my newspaper that will
be out to-morrow,” said Harry.
Morgan uttered an impatient exclamation. “Don’t do it!” he said.
“I will!” said Harry.
“Then--look out for yourself, young man, that’s all!” said Morgan, and
he turned and strode away down the street.