Chapter IV: 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.”