Crowded Out o' Crofield; or, The Boy who made his Way, William O. Stoddard [lightest ebook reader TXT] 📗

"I'm so glad you're here," said Mrs. Murdoch, when Mary came out to supper. "I never read a newspaper myself, and I don't know the first thing about putting one together. It's too bad that you should be bothered with it though."

"Why, Mrs. Murdoch," exclaimed Mary, laughing, "I shall be delighted. I'd rather do it than not."

The truth was that it was not easy for either Mary or her brother to be very sorry that Mr. Murdoch was not able to work. They did not feel anxious about him, for his wife had told them it was not a serious attack, and they enjoyed the prospect of editing the newspaper.

After supper Jack and Mary went through the garden to the Eagle office. The pony-engine was in a sort of woodshed, the press was in the "kitchen," as Mary called it, and the front room of the little old dwelling-house was the business office. The editor's office and the type-setting room were up-stairs.

Jack took a look at the engine.

"Any one could run that," he said. "I know just how to set it going. Come on, Molly. This is going to be great fun."

The editor's room was only large enough for a table and a chair and a few heaps of exchange newspapers. The table was littered and piled with scraps of writing and printing.

"See!" exclaimed Jack, picking up a sheet of paper. "The last thing Mr. Murdoch did was to finish an account of his visit to Crofield, and the flood. We'll put that in first thing to-morrow. It's easy to edit a newspaper. Where are the scissors?"

"We needn't bother to write new editorials," said Mary. "Here are all these papers full of them."

"Of course," said Jack. "But we must pick out good ones."

Their tastes differed somewhat, and Mary condemned a number of articles that seemed to Jack excellent. However, she selected a story and some poems and a bright letter from Europe, and Jack found an account of an exciting horse-race, a horrible railway accident, a base-ball match, a fight with Indians, an explosion of dynamite, and several long strips of jokes and conundrums.

"These are splendid editorials!" said Mary, looking up from her reading. "We can cut them down to fit the Eagle, and nobody will suspect that Mr. Murdoch has been away."

"Oh, they'll do," said Jack. "They're all lively. Mr. Murdoch is sure to be satisfied. I don't think he can write better editorials himself."

The young editors were much excited over their work, and soon became so absorbed in their duties that it was ten o'clock before they knew it.

"Now, Molly," said Jack, "we'll go to the house and tell him it's all right. We'll set the Eagle a-going in the morning. I knew we could edit it."

Mary had very little to say; her fingers ached from plying the scissors, her eyes burned from reading so much and so fast, and her head was in a whirl.

At the house they met Mrs. Murdoch.

"Oh, my dear children!" exclaimed she to Mary, "Mr. Murdoch is delirious. The doctor's been here, and says he won't be able to think of work—not for days and days. Can you,—can you run the Eagle? You won't let it stop."

"No, indeed!" said Mary. "There's plenty of 'copy' ready, and Jack can run the engine."

"I'm so glad," said Mrs. Murdoch. "I'd never dare to clip anything. I might make serious mistakes. He's so careful not to attack anything nor to offend anybody. All sorts of people take the Eagle, and Mr. Murdoch says he has to steer clear of almost everything."

"We won't write anything," said Jack; "we'll just select the best there is and put it right in. Those city editors on the big papers know what to write."

The editor's wife was convinced; and, after Mary had gone to her room, Jack returned to a room prepared for him in the Eagle office.

"I sha'n't wear my Sunday clothes to-morrow," said Jack; "I'll put on a hickory shirt and old trousers; then I'll be ready to work."

The last thing he remembered saying to himself was:

"Well, I'm nine miles nearer to New York."

Morning came, and Jack was busy before breakfast, but he went to the house early.

"I must be there when the 'hands' come," he said to Mrs. Murdoch. "Molly ought to be in the office, too—"

"I've told Mr. Murdoch," she said, "but he has a severe headache. He can't bear to talk."

"He needn't talk if he doesn't feel able," replied Jack. "The Eagle will come out all right!"

Mary could hardly wait to finish her cup of coffee, but she tried hard to appear calm. She was ready as soon as Jack, but she did not have quite so much confidence in her ability to do whatever might be necessary.

There was to be some press-work done that forenoon, and the pony-engine had steam up when the foreman and the two type-setters reached the office.

"Good-morning, Mr. Black," said Jack, as he came into the engine-room. "It's all right. I'm Jack Ogden, a friend of Mr. Murdoch's. The new editor's upstairs. There's some copy ready. Mr. Murdoch will not be at the office for a week."

"Bless me!" said Mr. Black. "I reckoned that we'd have to strike work. What we need most is a 'devil'—"

"I can be 'devil,'" said Jack. "I used to run the Standard."

"Boys," said the foreman, without the change of a muscle in his pasty-looking face, "Murdoch's hired a proxy. I'll go up for copy."

He stumped upstairs to what he called the "sanctum." The door stood open. Mr. Black's eyes blinked rapidly when he saw Mary at the editor's table; but he did not utter a word.

"Good-morning, Mr. Black," said Mary, holding out Mr. Murdoch's manuscript and a number of printed clippings. She rapidly told him what they were, and how each of them was to be printed. Mr. Black heard her to the end, and then he said:

"Good-morning, ma'am. Is your name Murdoch, ma'am?"

"No, sir. Miss Ogden," said Mary. "But no one need be told that Mr. Murdoch is not here. I do not care to see anybody, unless it's necessary."

"Yes, ma'am," said Mr. Black. "We'll go right along, ma'am. We're glad the Eagle is to come out on time, ma'am."

He was very respectful, as if the idea of having a young girl as editor awed him; and he backed out of the office, with both hands full of copy, to stump down-stairs and tell his two journeymen:

"It's all right, boys. Bless me! I never saw the like before."

He explained the state of affairs, and each in turn soon managed to make an errand up-stairs, and then to come down again almost as awed as Mr. Black had been.

"She's a driver," said the foreman. "She was made for a boss. She has it in her eye."

Even Jack, when he was sent up after copy, was a little astonished.

"That's the way father looks," he thought, "whenever he begins to lose his temper. The men mind him then, too; but he has to be waked up first. I know how she feels. She's bound the Eagle shall come out on time!"

Even Jack did not appreciate how responsibility was waking up Mary Ogden, or how much older she felt than when she left Crofield; but he had an idea that she was taller, and that her eyes had become darker.

Mr. Bones, the man of all work in the front office below, was of the opinion that she was very tall, and that her eyes were very black, and that he did not care to go up-stairs again; for he had blundered into the sanctum, supposing that Mr. Murdoch was there, and remarking as he came:

"Sa-ay, that there underdone gawk that helps edit the Inquirer, he was jist in, lookin' for—yes, ma'am! Beg pardon, ma'am! I'm only Bones—"

"What did the gentleman want, Mr. Bones?" asked Mary, with much dignity. "Mr. Murdoch is at home. He is ill. Is it anything I can attend to?"

"Oh, no, ma'am; nothing, ma'am. He's a blower. We don't mind him, ma'am. I'll go down right away, ma'am. I'll see Mr. Black, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."

He withdrew with many bows; and while down-stairs he saw Jack, and he not only saw, but felt, that something very new and queer had happened to the Mertonville Eagle.

Both Mary and Jack were aware that there was a rival newspaper, but it had not occurred to them that they were at all interested in the Inquirer, or in its editors, beyond the fact that both papers were published on Thursdays, and that the Eagle was the larger.

The printers worked fast that day, as if something spurred them on, and Mr. Black was almost bright when he reported to Mary how much they had done during the day.

"The new boy's the best 'devil' we ever had, ma'am," said he. "Please say to Mr. Murdoch we'd better keep him."

"Thank you, Mr. Black," said she. "I hope Mr. Murdoch will soon be well."

He stumped away, and it seemed to her as if her dignity barely lasted until she and Jack found themselves in Mr. Murdoch's garden, on their way home. It broke completely down as they were going between the sweet-corn and the tomatoes, and there they both stopped and laughed heartily.

"But, Molly," Jack exclaimed, when he recovered his breath, "we'll have to print the liveliest kind of an Eagle, or the Inquirer will get ahead of us. I'm going out, after supper, all over town, to pick up news. If I can only find some boys I know here, they could tell me a lot of good items. The boys know more of what's going on than anybody."

"I'd like to go with you," said Mary. "Stir around and find out all you can."

"I know what to do," said Jack, with energy, and if he had really undertaken to do all he proceeded to tell her, it would have kept him out all night.

Supper was ready when Jack and Mary went into the house, and Mrs. Murdoch was eager that they should eat at once. She seemed very placidly to take it for granted that things were going properly in the Eagle office. Her husband had been ill before, and the paper had somehow lived along, and she was not the kind of woman to fret about it.

"He's been worrying," she said to Mary, "principally about town news. He's afraid the Inquirer 'll get ahead of you. It might be good to see him."

"I'll see him," said Mary.

"Mary! Mary!" came faintly in reply to her kindly greeting. "Local items, Mary. Society Notes—the flood—logs—bridges—dams—fires. Brief Mention. Town Improvement Society—the Sociable—anything!"

"Jack will be out after news as soon as he eats his supper," said Mary. "He'll find all there is to find. The printers did a splendid day's work."

"The doctor says not to tell me about anything," said the sick man, despondently. "You'll fill the paper somehow. Do the best you can, till I get well."

She did not linger, for Mrs. Murdoch was already pulling her sleeve. The three were soon seated at the table, and hardly was a cup of tea poured before Mrs. Murdoch remarked:

"Mary," she said, "Miss Glidden called here to-day, with Mrs. Judge Edwards, in her carriage. They were sorry to find you out. So did Mrs. Mason, and so did Mrs. Lansing, and Mrs. Potter. They wanted you to go riding, and there's a lawn-tennis party coming. I told them all that Mr. Murdoch was sick, and you were editing the Eagle, and Jack was, too. Miss Glidden's very fond of you, you know. So is Mrs. Potter. Her husband wishes he knew what to send Jack for saving his wife from being drowned."

This was delivered steadily but not rapidly, and Mary needed only to say she would have been glad to see them all.

"I didn't save anybody," said Jack. "If the logs had hit the bridge while we were on it, nothing could have saved us."

Mary was particularly glad that none of her new friends were coming in to spend the evening, for she felt she had done enough for one day. Mrs. Murdoch, however, told her of a "Union Church Sociable," to be held at the house of Mrs. Edwards, the next