McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1884-06-05
How the Old Printer Passed Away.

Burlington Hawkeye-
And so, year after year, he wrought
among the boys on a morning paper.
He went to bed about the time the rest
of the world got up, and he rose about
the time the rest of the world sat down
to dinner. He worked by every kind
of light except sunlight. There were
candles in the office when he came in;
then they had lard oil lamps that
smoked and sputtered and smelled;
then he saw two or three printers
blinded by explosions of camphene and
spirit gas; then kerosene came and
heated up the. news-room on summer
nights like a furnace; then the office
put in gas, and now the electric light
swung from the ceiling and dazzled his
old eyes, and glared into them from
his copy. If he sang on his way home
q policeman babe him "cheese that"
and reminded him that he was disturb
ing the peace and people wanted to
sleep. But when he wanted to sleep
the rest of the world, for whom he had
sat up all night to make d morning pa
per, roared and crashed by down the
noisy streets under his window, with
cart and truck and omnibus; blared
with brass bands, howled with hand
organs, talked and shouted; and even
the shrieking newsboys, with a CHASTITY
sarcasm, murdered the sleep of the old
printer by yelling the name of his own
paper.
Year after year the foreman roared
at him to remember that this wasn't an
afternoon paper, EDITORS shrieked down
the tube to have blind man put on
that dead mans case; smart young
proof readers scrubbed sarcastic COM
ments on his work on the margin of his
proof slips, they didn't know how to
read; longwinded correspondents
learning to write, and long-haired
poets who could never learn to spell,
wrathfullv cast all their imperfections
upon his head. But through it all he
wrought patiently, and found more
sunshine than shadow in the world; he
had more friends than enemies. Print
ers and foremen and pressmen and re-
pOrters came and went, but he stayed,
and he saw newsroOm and sanctum
filled and emptied and filled and emp
tied again and filled again with new
strange faces. He believed in his craft,
and to the end he had silent pity.
that came as near being contempt as
his good, forgiving old heart could feel,
for IN editor who had not worked his
way from regular devilship up past
the cases and the imposing stone.
He worked all that night, and when
the hours that are so short. in the ball
room and so long in the composing
room, drew YEARLY on, he was tired
He hadn't thrown in very full case, he
said, and he had to climb clear into the
boxes and chase type up into a cor
ner before he could get hold of it. One
of the boys, tired as himself-but q
printer is never too tired to be good
natured-offcred to change places with
him, but the old man said there was
enough in the case to last him through
this take, and he wouldn't work any
more tonight. The type clicked in
the silent room, and by and by the old
man said:
''I'm out of sOrts.''
And ne sat down on the low window
sill by his case, with his stick in his
hand, his hands folded YEARLY in his
lap. The types clicked on. A galley
of telegraph waited.
"What gentleman is lingering with
D 1872" called the. foreman, who was
always dangerously polished and polite
when he was on the point of exploding
with wrath and Impotence.
Slug Nine, passing by the alley, stop
ped to speak to the old man sitting
there so quietly.
The telegraph boy came running in
with the last manifold sheet shouting:
"Thirty!''
They carried the old man to the fore
mans long table and laid him down
reverently and covered his face. They
took the stick out of his nerveless hand,
and read his last take:
Boston, Nov. 23.-The American bark
Pilgrim went to pieces off Marblehead in
light gale about midnight. She was old,
and unseaworthy, and this was to have been
| hpr last trim