The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1891-11-10
THE OLD PRINTER.
He Was Short of Type and When s"Thir.
ty" Came, His Spirit Had Flown.

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 arose about the
time the rest of the world sat down to
dinner. He worked by every kind of
light except sunlight. There were
fandles 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 in and heated up the
newsrooms 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 a police
man babe him "cheese that" and re-
minded him that he was disturbing the
peace and people wanted to sleep. But
when he wanted to sleep, the rest of the
world, for whom he has sat up all night
to make a morning paper, roared and
crashed by down the noisy streets under
his window, with cart and truck and
omnibus; blared out with brass bands,
howled with hand organs, talked and
shouted, and even the shrieking news
boys. with a CHASTITY sarcasm, murdered
the sleep of the tired old printer by yell
ing the name of his own paper.
Year after year the foreman roared at
him to remember that this was not an
afternoon paper, editors shrieked down
the tube to have a blind man put on that
dead mans case, smart young proof
readers scrubbed sarcastic comments on
his work or the margin of his proof slips
that they didn't know how to read, long
winded correspondents learning to write
and long haired poets who could never
learn to spell wrathfully 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 enc
mics.
Printers and foremen and pressmen
and reporters and editors came and
went, but he staid, and he saw news
papers and sanctum filed and emptied
and filled and emptied again, and filled
with new strange faces. He believed in
ITO SLolO, CtLlO W III CLlu ~ 1du q S1lCuN
pity, that came as nea being contempt
as his good, forgiving old heart could
feel, for an editor who had not worked
his way from a 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
o and so long in the composing room
drew YEARLY on, he vas tired. He
hadn't thrown in a very full case, he
said, and he had to climb clear into the
boxes and chase a type up into a corner
before he could get hold Of it. One Of
the boys, tired as himself-but a printer
is never too tired to be good natured-
offered 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 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 Is
d." called the foreman, who was danger
ously polished and polite when he was
on the point of exploding with wrath
and Importance.
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 rev.
erently 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 Marble
head in a light gale about midnight.
She was old and u~nseaworthy, and this
was to have been her last trip."-Bob
B1ur1atta.