The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-10-06
piano THAT Had a Soul.

Among those Democratic editors who
met recently In the Hoffman House, as
relief from writing editorials about
whittier ara we drifting as a nation and
announcing that there is no time like the
present to subscribe was one who went
to the boundless West along about the
time that Horace Greeley advised the
sunset route for ambitious young men,
says the New York Press. He founder
ed around, finally landing in Wichita,
when Kansas had the boom, the collaps-
ing of which made jerry Simpson and
Medicine Lodge. He recalled the boom
times in Wichita as he gazed at the Hoff-
man House pictures, the cut glass on the
bar and the general air of prosperity.
Then he grew reminiscent.
You remember" said he to his edito-
rial friends. when I busted up in St.
Lawrence county and drifted out West.
Well l kept moving around out there I'M
til l was nearly as well known as our
old friend J. N, who used to lift the
pressure. Then 1 hit Wichita. Things
were on the rise. I started a weekly and
It got TO be a daily. The boom was on
and the paper had a circulation like that
of a typhoid fever patient.
Il was only part owner. My partner
was the business man. We had two dozen
reporters and covered local news to Fort
Scott We did we'll
Then came the fall. A piano man bust
ed up. He owed US for advertising and
all we got out of him was a piano. 1t
was moved into the Times Office, and
from that time on it was the thermometer
of Wichita's business condition.
MY partner would go down to the bank
and give the president talk about our
notes. If he was successful never had
TO be told of it. He would come back,
sit down and play a good. rousng, old,
hair-splittng understanding that
sounded like payday. If he got the frozen
face it was a funeral march.
THE printers got onto it. If on pay
day they heard oh, I Am the Major
Gilfeather they told the storekeeper that
they would pay him that night. But if it
was John Browns Body they came In
and asked for a meal ticket.
I'm never forget the last morning my
partner sat down at the piano. I didn't
know anything about the finish of our en-
terprse, although I knew it couldn't be
postponed much longer. He sat down. put
his foot on the soft pedal and started
Home, Sweet Home The printers in the
composing room laid down their sticks.
The two reporters we had left to us quit
making copy, and 1 came out of my room
TO listen.
THAT piano fairly talked. When my
partner finished we were alone-the prin-
ters and all had gone. They knew 1t was
over. My partner didn't say anything. He
just got up, looked at me and run his
hand into his pocket He had one half
dollar and a quarter. We went out to-
gether to the corner and got a drink. 1
didn't have a cent. He paid for the drink
and gave me the quarter change
1--WE walked down past the office. The
place was deserted and on the door was
This place is in the hands of the sheriff.
1T was the only time 1 ever saw a
piano in a printing office but I think that
If we had lasted that one would have
learned how to set type. 1t was human,
and it knew what was happening. The
sheriff told me afterward that when he
went up to look at it he found the keys
all wet do not know whether the rub
Der cover had caused it to perspire or
whether it was weeping over our finish"