The Portland daily press., 1874-12-02
McVey's Venture.

1t is year ago this November since Nc
Vey gave up the editorship of The IdrYytoacn
Ne,os. "He says it doesn't pay," said
Squire Brice at Potts drug shop that night.
college, and he's brought up four children
and bought a house and lot on it. Doesn't
pay indeed! think Mac would have liked
us to run him into Congress-" said Potts,
spreading pitch plaster. 'sHe'll take lead
ing part in politics in New York, you'll see.
Well, Mac'il make his mark, there's no doubt
Of that" said the Squire. But Tarrytown
was out of temper with McVey. Everybody
had subscribed for the Ne,us and boasted of
it out of their own county. SIT was none of
your tuppeny village Sheets" as the Squire
said tonight s'The serial stories and poems
on the first page were of A No. order; and
as for the leaders, you might look over the
New York dailies a long time before you
found political matters dealt with as vigor-
ously. Mac handles the other party without
gloves, in way which makes the articles of
those city fellows confoundedly lame. Or
where will you find the apt quotations from
Horace or the sly illusions to the doings of
the ancient gods and goddesses? Macs cas-
steal education tells there! That magnifi-
cent piece of his, now, on the Credit Mo-
bilier business, that ended with 'Quis Gus
todiet ipsos custodes w That was neat, sir,
neat. Pm not surprised New York has got
him. 1t swallows up the brain of the coun-
try, Sir"
McVey, sitting in his dismantled office Che
was to leave in the midnight train) felt it
was time that his brain found its true work
in New York. He was quite assured of the
vigor Of his logic, the delicacy of his taste,
the breadth of his culture. "Men," he told
his wife, with half my ability have coined
fortunes in New York and Philadelphia.
The king Of journalism began without shoes
to their feet. Here am I, grown gray-headed
with doing out ideas to these village folks,
and what has it paid? The house cost ST.
500, and that with the $1,000 in bank is the
sum total of my life's work." ''We have
lived very comfortably" ventured Mary.
clothed, and now the boys are through col
lege and ready to go into business. Could
you have done better in New York ?' "You
shall see, you shall seep smiling. 'I settled
the house and bank stockton you to-day, Molly.
It's but a drop in the bucket compared to
what we will have two years from now"
McVey meant to leave his wife and children
behind for the first year of his venture. By
that time the golden flood would have begun.
New York would have discovered the quality
of man who had come to it at this late day.
He looked about his Office nova large, airy
room, opening at the back into garden
where he had raised vegetables; Dcky. the
local editor, and the three printers going out
to weed with him when slack of work. In
the closet still lay some mammoth pumpkins,
two or three sacks of flower and barrels of
potatoes, which old Durborow had brought in
to pay for his advertisement. "A miserably
petty way of doing businessv' he thought.
He took copy of the Ne,cs; there were
the funeral verses, kept in type to serve for
every death; there were the glaring head
lines, Burning Of Major Shanks's barn! In
cendiarism stalks rampant in our midstp'
the report of Miss Brice's school examination
and the soulstirring pathos of the valedictorv;
the jokes about our gallant friend Joe Dut-
toms visits to Crows Creek, and certain
young lady there. How small it was-stale.
provincial! No wonder his brain had con-
tracted in such Jail bounds. "No, God knows
It hasn't paidP cried McVey tragically,
thinking of the ten talents buried in this nap
kin.
McVey did not come to this city as do the
majority OF adventures, with but the chance
of good luck or work. Wood (who left Tar
rytowu twenty years ago, and who was re-
puted to have acquired princely fortune