Jap Herron Part 4

"I'll work all night," cried j.a.p eagerly. "I'll clean it up."

"We'll have plenty of time," said Ellis gloomily. "We have to hit the road, kid. Judge Bowers owns the place. He has promised to set us out before morning."

But luck came with j.a.p. It was Friday again, and Bowers's wife presented him with twins, his mother-in-law arrived, and his uncle inherited a farm. There was only one way for the news to be disseminated, and he came in with his truculent son and helped clean up, so that the _Herald_ could be issued on time. More than that, he made the boys shake hands, and concluded to put Bill to work in the _Herald_ office. After he had puffed noisily out, Ellis looked whimsically at Bill.

"Are you going to board yourself out of what I am able to pay you?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't reckon Pappy cares about that," the boy said cheerfully.

"He just wants to keep me out of mischief, and he said that lookin' at you was enough to sober a sot."

Months dragged by. Bill and j.a.p worked more or less harmoniously.

Once a day they fought; but it was fast becoming a mere function, kept up just for form. Ellis was doing better. He had set up housekeeping, since j.a.p came, in the back room of the little wooden structure that faced the Public Square, and housewives sent them real food once in a while.

Once Ellis feared that j.a.p was going to quit him for the Golden Sh.o.r.e.

It was on the occasion of Myrtilla Botts's wedding, when she baked the cakes herself, for practice, and her mother thoughtfully sent most of them to the Editor, to insure a big puff for Myrtilla. Ellis was afraid; but j.a.p, with the enthusiasm and inexperience of youth, took a chance. Bill was laid up with mumps, or the danger would have been lessened. As it was, it took all the doctors in town to keep j.a.p alive until they could uncurl him and straighten out his appendix, which appeared to be cased in wedding cake. This experience gave j.a.p an added distaste for the state of matrimony.

"My dad allus said to keep away from marryin'," he moaned. "But how'd I know you'd ketch it from the eatin's?"

The subscription list grew apace. There was a load of section ties, two bushel of turnips and six pumpkins paid in November. Bill and j.a.p went hunting once a week, so the larder grew beyond sardines. j.a.p acquired a hatred of turnips and pumpkins that was in after years almost a mania. At Christmas, Kelly Jones brought in a barrel of sorghum, "to sweeten 'em," he guffawed. j.a.p had grown to manhood before he wholly forgave that pleasantry. It was a hard winter.

Everybody said so, and when j.a.p gazed at Ellis across the turnips and sorghum of those weary months, he said he believed it.

"Shame on you," rebuked Ellis, gulping his turnips with haste. "Think of the wretched people who would be glad to get this food."

"Do you know any of their addresses?" asked j.a.p abruptly. "Because I can't imagine anybody happy on turnips and sorghum. I'd be willin' to trade my wretched for theirn."

Kelly said that j.a.p would be fat as b.u.t.ter if he ate plenty of mola.s.ses, and this helped at first; but when the gra.s.s came, he begged Ellis to cook it for a change.

When George Thomas came in, one bl.u.s.tery March day, to say that if the turnips were all gone, he would bring in some more, Ellis pied Judge Bowers's speech on the duties of the Village Fathers to the alleys, when he saw the malignant look that j.a.p cast upon the cheery farmer.

Once a week Bill and j.a.p drew straws to determine which one should fare forth in quest of funds, and for the first time in his brief business career, j.a.p was glad the depressing task had fallen to him. "Pi" was likely to bring on an acute attack of mental indigestion, and the boy had learned to dread Ellis Hinton's infrequent but illuminating flame of wrath.

The catastrophe had been blotted out, the last stickful of type had been set and Bill had gone home to supper when j.a.p, leg-weary and discouraged, wandered into the office. Ellis looked up from the form he was adjusting.

"How did you ever pick out this town?" the boy complained, turning the result of his day's collection on the table.

Ellis turned from the bit of pine he was whittling, a makeshift depressingly familiar to the country editor. He scanned the meager a.s.sortment of coins with anxious eye. j.a.p's lower jaw dropped.

"I'll have to fire you if you haven't got enough to pay for the paper."

"Got enough for that," said j.a.p mournfully, "but not enough for meat."

"Didn't Loghman owe for his ad?" Ellis demanded. "Did you ask him for it?"

"Says you owe him more 'n he's willin' for you to owe," j.a.p ventured.

Ellis sighed.

"Meat's not healthy this damp weather," he suggested. "Cook something light."

"It'll be darned light," said j.a.p. "There's one tater."

"No bread?" asked Ellis.

"Give that sc.r.a.p to the cat," j.a.p returned, "Doc Hall says she's done eat all the mice in town and if we don't feed her she'll be eatin'

off'n the subscribers."

"Confound Doc Hall," stormed Ellis. "You take your orders from me.

That bread, stewed with potato, would have made a dandy dish." He shook the form to settle it, and faced j.a.p.

"How did I come to pick this place?" he said slowly. "Well, j.a.p, it was the dirtiest deal a boy ever got. I had a little money after my father died. I wanted to invest it in a newspaper, somewhere in the West, where the world was honest and young. I had served my apprenticeship in a dingy, narrow little New England office, and I thought my lifework was cut out for me. I had big dreams, j.a.p. I saw myself a power in my town. With straw and mud I wanted to build a town of brick and stone. Dreams, dreams, j.a.p, dreams. Some day you may have them, too."

He let his lean form slowly down into a chair. j.a.p braced himself against the table as the narrative continued:

"In Hartford I met Hallam, the man who started the Bloomtown _Herald_.

I heard his flattering version. I inspected his subscription list and studied the columns of his paper, full of ads. I bought. The subs were deadheads, the ads--gratuitous, for my undoing. It was indeed straw and mud, and, lad, it has remained straw and mud." He leaned his head on his hand for a moment.

"That was the year after you were born, j.a.p. I was only twenty-one.

For a year I was hopeful; then I dragged like a dead dog. You will be surprised when I tell you what brought me to life again. I tell you this, boy, so that you will never despise Opportunity, though she may wear blue calico, as mine did.

"It was one dark, cold day. No human face had come inside the office for a week. That was the period of my life when I learned how human a cat can be. We were starving, the cat and me, with the advantage in favor of the cat. She could eat vermin. I sat by the table, wondering the quickest way to get out of it. Yes, j.a.p, the first and, G.o.d help me, the only time that life was worthless. The door opened and a plump woman dressed in blue calico, a sunbonnet pushed back from her smiling face, entered."

To j.a.p, who listened with his heart in his throat, it seemed that Ellis was quoting perhaps a page from the memoirs he had written for the benefit of his townsmen. His deep, melodious voice fell into the rhythmic cadence of a reader, as he continued:

"'Howdy, Mr. Editor,' she chirped. 'I've been keenin' for a long time to come in to see you. I think you are aprintin' the finest paper I ever seen. I brought you a mess of sa.s.sage and a pa.s.sel of bones from the killin'. It's so cold, they'll keep a spell. And here's a dollar for next year's paper. I don't want to miss a number. I am areadin'

it over and over. Seems like you are agoin' to make a real town out of Bloomtown,' and with a friendly pat on the arm, she was gone."

Ellis brushed the long hair from his brow, the strange modulation went out of his voice and the fire returned to his brown eyes as he said:

"j.a.p, I got up from that table and fell on my knees, and right there I determined that starvation nor cold nor any other enemy should rout me.

j.a.p, I am going to make Bloomtown a real town yet. My boy, that blue calico lady was Mrs. Kelly Jones."

CHAPTER III

Ellis scowled and kicked his stool absently with his heels.

"Will you explain where the colons and semicolons have emigrated to?"

he asked Bill, with suppressed wrath.

"We was short of quads, and I whittled 'em off."

Ellis glared at Bill's ingenuous face.

"And what, pray, did you whittle to take their place?"

"Never had no call to use 'em," muttered Bill, chewing up the item he had just disposed of. "I can say all that I can think with commas and periods."