Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1884-05-22
The Old Printer Aud His Home Idea.

1nere was q wife ana there was Il bOV,
Long before any one now in the Office
had Il sit in the news-roOm, presS-room,
business office or sanctum, and before
fine old man had begun to look out at
the world through spectacles and his
figure was as straight as it was tall, the
typos and reporters used to hear great
deal of talk about buying a house out
on the hill, where he could have a patch
of garden. And by and by he was
going to quit sticking type and get into
something that would let him STAY at
home nights and get acquainted with
his family. And the suit of clothes he
bought in the fall lasted long way in
to the next summer, and then they
came out again in the winter, and the
old man rushed more than he ever
did again while that dream of home was
inspiring him. 1t is an old story, this
struggle of a printer to get home; any
one of these restless mariners of the
land, drifting from port to port and
back again, lured Ply the ignis fatuis of
so many cents more thousand and
price and q half after O'Clock, and
big bills with four or five nights work
Never a wandering jour printer got
chance to stand at the old mans case
while he was saving money for house
and lot, and the subs looked at him
with the despairing glances of starva-
ton. But it is hard uphill work for a
printer to buy a home. His pay is
easily reduced and hardly raised;
long strike means the road for him and,
if he has a family and can't tramp, he
Is Is "a l..
and goes out of the union and YEARLY
works at the bosses rates. So the old
man worked bravely on, rs many a
printer has worked before and since his
time, and the little plant in the bank be-
gan to grow brighter as the old clothes
grew shabbier.
And the boy, growing into his tenth
year, used to be seen in the office after
school, standing at his tall fathers ell
bow, learning in a very irregular boy
Sh unapprenticed fashion, with cat
aract of questions, to stick type.
The old man never intended the boy to
be printer And he was so proud of
him and his standing at school, and
once the boy wrote ten-line account of
a boy falling downstairs that good
! natured reporter sent it in just as it
1 came, although it was dull day, and
/ the scribe wanted awfully to make it a
/ column and put on hanging head.
And the old man sent marked copies
! of that paper to every soul he knew in
/ this world
/ But one day an unbiddeh guest came
home from school with the boy and sat
| down by the hearthstone in the old
mans rented home. And the long DAYS
/ of fever and doctors bills drew out
nearly all that little home bank account,
and one black day the old mans case
was empty and the business Office told
| the undertaken that all his bills would
| be paid there and he mustn't take any
money from the old man. And pale
and quiet and sad, looking old and
worn, was the printer who came next
day and took his old place at the case
| The types didn't click very fast in that
| alley for days after that. And sometimes
| the printers face would be lying on the
/ boxes in his folded arms, and how path
/ etic looked the half-flled stick in the
/ clasped herds, the composing rule fall.
en- out of its place. and the pied type
and leads all tumbling together. More
| than one printer, going by on his way
to empty his stick in the galley, was a
long time bending down 1tind the take
his one followed; and more than one.
! looking across at the heart broken pic
ture of sorrow. leaned close down TO
his copy to read fair writing that was
never blurred when it came off the hook
and glimmed his eyes with an unsteady
+ hand. saying something about the dust
or the glare of the light And then
about five years after that the bows
j mother, weary of the long pilgrimage,
/ lay down to rest in cool arbor, rooted
I with waving grasses and blue violets.
and awoke to kiss her boy.-BurieRe
in Burlington Hdwkeye.