News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-03-13
THE MISSING EXCHANGE

A rainy Saturday evening in Janu-
airy in the bustling little New England
town of Cornwall, where |, one of the
innumerable class known as country
editors, am eking out a fair liveli-
hood.
Passing hurriedly along the muddy
streets, greeted by eight out of nine of
the shivering and wet pedestrians who
are Fastening to more or less cheerful
home flies, for the rural pencil pusher
is known by Tom and Dick as we'll as
by Harry, l soon have the satisfaction
of hearing my own gate slam behind
me, and through the half-drawn cur
tains of the window catch a CLEAN of
the cracking fire i'll the old-fashioned
Franklin stove, taken as an equivalent
for a seven years subscription to the
Gazette from hard-up and delinquent
subscriber.
A moment more, overcOat off and
slippers on, rush for the table, and
after hearty supper, sit oy the fire
and discuss with my little dark-haired
wife, matters journalistic and typogra-
phic, for the true wife of a country
newspaper man is we'll posted on topics
of the craft rs is the head of the house.
As my companion looks through the
pile of exchanges that [ have thrown
on the table, she asks, ''Where is the
Newbury Journal?' and to her inquiry
| make the answer that l do fer several
weeks fo lowing:
at has not come since Christmas
week"
The cause of our special inte:es in
this pa ticular paper lay in our &C
quaintance with Mark Arnold. its pub
Usher, genial and jolly old man, and
one who always greeted us with
friendly shake of the hand and kind
word whenever we met, and we there
fore had come to have special liking
for this veteran in the harness.
Christina Eve, 1888. The time of
year when the worll sits down and
thinks Of nothing but joy and good
will. But there are here and there
those who in their thoughts at this
gladtide time of the year find deep
vein of sorrow running through their
usual holiday gladness, which twelve
month ago they had not dreamed of.
And tonight Marx Arnold, the old
gray-haired editor, finds himself with
the latter class.
As he sits at the worn flat top desk
on which he has written SO many
words of local import and +, cord in the
half century he has occupied that old
fashioned armchair, forming the only
history of the doings of Newbury that
New Hampshire town will ever have,
he places his head in his hands and |
leaning on the desk, his long white |
beard resting on the paper before him,
he silently thinks of the events of the |
passing year, and wonders why he is so
sad. On the street below he hears the |
brisk CHATTER of feet on the pavement,
in the store under his office he hears |
the slam and incessant squeak of the |
unoiied door, sure indication that the
merchant is diminishing his stock OF |
Christmas goodies, and yet he feels in |
his thoughts as widely separated from |
the happy throng, as though he had |
never seen or heard of them or their
Christmas festivities.
Raising his head and glancing
around the office dimly lit by the lone
Pickering jet of gas above him, the
stiffness of the room grows weird in
its silence, and he gazes at the old |
cylinder press in the corner, its huge |
shadow darkening the already indis-
tinct outline of the dingy walls
covered with posters and Autographs
placed there by the "dcvil'' az stolen
periods when the 'boss" was absent,
unconsciously forming chronology of
the amusements of the locality; then
glances at the racks with their loads of
cases filled with types that have chron-
icled events of more importance in the
eyes of his rural patti ons than the
downfall of nations or the founding
of empires, and that in their varied
from week to. week,
month to month, and year to year,
have helped to create and depose
national as well as local.
As he dreamily looks at the shadow
covered scene before him, he half eX-
poets to see arise at the cases the forms
of those who have occupied them in
past years, some of whom have gradu-
ated into places of influence and honor,
while others have quietly slipped away
from the notice of the world and passed
into another sphere where they are
now pursuing angelic or dem >niac
pursuits.
But gradually and imperceptibly his
mind travels back to the day, so long
lgo, when with his young wife, he
proudly entered the little village as the
founder of its first newspaper; how
he sense of his noble mission filled his
breast, with what pride he inspected
he first sheet of the initial issue with
is announcement of the purpose to fill '
"a long felt want" of his half century
If close Applicant to his chosen call
ng; now at tie case, at the press, at
ocal happenings of interest, at town
church fairs, cattle shows; :
now editor, reporter, book-keeper, in
act man, sided man in his daily toll, {
Tot pursuing these varied duties in ]
asses of >mergency, but day after day,
md year after year; and on this
christmas Eve he looks back on his i
fifty years of toll with a feeling Of
i-content.
True, he has n record which many c
man of more pretensiOns might look I
t with pride, of work done in behalf
# his town that has accomplished re- [
ults for which none but the recording s
ngcls gave him credit, of gu ct deeds L
f kindness to his townsmen in the a
of many stray item that Il
would have proved wearisome thorn /
II the icsh, and other of those kind
cts which give a person satisfaction e
n ihe doing, and which often is the q
My recompense for their accomplish S
lent. He has prospered in his bust e
css, his friends and influence, but L
yithal, the feeling of dissatisfaction a
nd detection pervades his thoughts. "
Three words, "'He is alone" ex plains I
lc reason of the old editors sadness. g
ust outside the town on a little hill d
de lies the village cemetery, and in p
ook under an old willow tree are four IL
hounds three of them small and fiat
med, evidence that the child forms
cneath nave lain there many year,
Mt the fourth is of larger shape and W
cwly made; and tear rolls down &C
is wrinkled face, as the old man, sit CT
NO in his lonely office, surrounded by al
he types and presses with which he di
rs labored so many years, thinks that tC
ley for whom he toiled so steadily II,
I,ft 81, L. -,