Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1878-03-28
''CONr lNING A CERTAIN PRODI
GAL"

NOAH DdDDlLl, JOuTuey IIldu printer, hG
struck me, as they say on the frontier,
for loan of two dollars. It was in the
sanctum of the Commonwealth news
paper at Topeka. He had drifted in
from his habitual wanderings only the
day before, and been put on as a " sub, !"
with the customary promise of q regular
cases as soon as a vacancy should Oc-
cur. This particular night he was not
at work; and after the last of the loaf
ers had gone, and while [ sat running
my pencil over a delayed proof hur-
riedly, and vexed with the heat and the
buzzing of insects about the lamp-shade,
it was fervid August night, re-
member, with not air enough to dis
turb the exchanges lying loosely in the
open Window-he tapped me Familiarity
on the shoulder and said:
Captain, that leader of yours yester-
day on the labor question was an awful
good thing; you sounded the keynote
and | want to congratulate you"
Thereupon we shook hands with ex-
travagant warmth, though with a reser-
walton of mutual distrust, I think, and
then we fell to talking on a variety of
topics, ranging from pauperism to the
doctrine of the atonement, in that can
did, positive and encyclopedia, but pic
turesque and superficial style common
to newspaper offices the world over
So much did the fellow interest me,
that, weary as / was with the nights
work, Il found myself, after two hours,
still patiently listening to him, as the
town clock struck four in the morning
In spite of my first instructive misgiv-
ings, he made me like him. He seemed
SO frank and self-confdent, so observ-
ant, so quick-witted, and so heroically
contented; and then, did he not fill
every lull IN the conversation with q
tlatterlng reference to my editorials ?
All, right well he knew, the calculating
wretch, that he, too, had sounded the
keynote with that Introductory con-
graduation BUTT was not until after
we had finished our talk, and [ was
making ready to leave him, that he
asked mel hardly know how, it was
done 50 dexterously-to favor him with
a " couple of dollars, till Saturday." OF
course he got it, though [ needed not to
be told that with the borrowing printer,
" till Saturday" is a measure of time
that spans eternity; and then he walked
with me, arm-in-arm, to the Old Crow
saloon, where he would not permit me
to avoid joining him in glass of ale,
and as | turned to go, | saw him hand
my two-dollar bill over the bar with an
air of cOmDlacence that really touched
me like a personal kindness.
After this we were frequently tOgeth-
er, and came to be quite cordial, not to
say confidential, in our relations. Every
night almost, when | was waiting for
the cabalistic $50 " that ended the tele-
graph news report, or after the final
proofs had been corrected and the com
positors had "pasted their strings" he
would come slipping int my room with
that soft, considerate tread peculiar to
printers when entering an editorial
sanctum, and we would talk there all
alone as at our first meeting, or if the
weather was pleasant, would go forth
into the night and walk the broad.
smooth streets till the moon went down.
My friend was Il confirmed "banner-
ite, as the printers term it-a careless,
shiftless. strolling vagabond, here to-
W,
or kindred, and treating life as a farce
full of amusing checks and balances,
with death closing it all, at last, in a
kind of unguessed conundrum. He had
walked thousands of miles over the
country. He always walked when he
travelled. get sea-sick on the cars, -
he SAID to me once, with grim smile;
and then he added. slowly and in a
shrinking tone, +" it makes my feet sore
to ride, too"
During the previous year he had
"made the tour of Canada" as he
phrased it; thence to Boston, New
York, Charleston, New Orleans, and up
the Mississippi to ST. Louis, and then
across Illinois and Iowa, and finally to
Topeka. He had not worked over a
week in any one place, nor rode a mile
on the whole journey. A hankerin'
for scenery" was the reason he gave me
for his extended ramble. And surely he
had not been bind to the shifting de
lights of sky and sea and shadOwing for
ests which had opened out before him
an unrOlling picture. Nor had he failed,
yagabOnd as he was, to note the peculiar
and varying traits of the different peo-
pie among whom his travels had led
him: for he had a keen insight, and de
tected 4 flaw or foible of character as
if it had been 4 bourgeois letter in line
ofnOnpareil. He was better than a book
to me, since he read himself and turned
his own leaves; and l gave look for
ward all day TO his coming nightly visits
with impatient eagemess. No doubt he
lied to me many times and scandalOusly
for he was mortal and not wholly with
out egotism. but he did it when he deem
ed it advisable, in such large, over
coming, cliff-hke way that it was almost
as good as the truth Where there Is
much to interest, says some generous
philosopher, there must yet be some
thing to pardon.
Why the boys in the office called him
"Old Noah" | could never quite make
out, perhaps it was because he had tray
eled so far and seen so much that his
life seemed to have been projected for
ward, somehow, faster and farther thar
the years counted. Or, it may have
been that his supreme indifference tc
all the alert and urging element o.
everyday me gave ~ MN, III lileI es
timation, something CT the learning anG
waiting spirit of one aged before his time
Certainly he bore no physical signs o
being an old man. He stood erect
lacking even the depression OF the
chest that is characteristic of his craft
his eyes We're full, clear and steady
and the slight touch of silver in hi;
whiskers made his face stronger rather
than weaker. He could not have beer
more than forty; he might easily have
passed for thirty-five. The oldest thing
about him was his costume. That was
always and conspicuously in that pa
thetic second childhood of decay, anC
always, too, out of harmony, with the
prevailing weather, thus appearing Il
have been left over from the preceding