The Van Buren press. [volume] (Van Buren, Ark.) 1859-1914, 1898-07-09
The Man Who Hung On
THE rattle of the Gazette's press was
By W. BERT FOSTER.

THE rattle of the Gazette's press was
the only sound in the long, one
storied brick structure occupied by its
editorial and printing rooms. The half
grown boy who, with Judson himself,
made up the staff of the paper, kept the
press going steadily, feat learned by
long practice. lie reached up one hand
showed sheet down to the guides, keep
ing the crank turning with his foot and
the other hand, and the old machine rat
tied on like a skeleton huttering in the
wind
Beyond the partition, in the little
square apartment dignified by the name
Of office, though almost as bare and I'M
slightly as the printing-room, sat Jud-
son, proprietor and editor of the Ca
zette, his elbows resting on the desk
lid, his face In his hands. There was a
hopelessness in his attitude, despair
ing stoop to his shoulders, which re-
vealed, more than did the shabbiness OF
his apparel and of the little office, the
depths to which he had come.
Judson had come out from the eastfive
years before, with all the hope and en-
thusiasm of a boundless ignorance oil
the country to which he had journeyed
to carve his fortune. In these five years
he had gained quantities of experience,
but the fortune had thus far proved
elusve-very elusive indeed.
lie had put his faith in the then
promising settlement of Bird City, and
had started in to mould and guide pub
lie thought through the columns of the
Gazette. But as the months passed the
enthusiasm of the Bird City citizens be-
gan to die out. The town had been built
upon the fiat prairie, leagues from a
river of any Importance and without
any other tie of communication with
the rest of the world 1t had been rosily
prophesied by the founders of the town
that it would one day become great
railway center. The nearest railway,
however, still remained 20-odd miles
away.
Bird City was not even the center of
"a thriving farming country" THIRTY
ing farming sections are growing
scarce in the west these years. Slowly
at first, the population of the town de-
camped. IT was a suggestively unfor-
tunate name-Bird City; it was soon
literally spreading its wings and mi
grating to other and more promising
lands.
But Judson hung on. At first his
faith in the ultimate success of the town
boom was mistaken. The great p. w.
q n, NJ. would throw out branch line
which must take Bird City in as its cen.
ter of operations. Then, when faith had
grown cold, pride kept him at his post
The doggedness of his New England an
cestry made him cling to the Gazette
and in its editorial columns from week
10 week blow the retreat of Bird City
as though it were an advance. But pub
lie confidence was shaken, and even the
brightest and most piquant editorial
comments, when printed alongside OF
obviously dead" advertisements,
could not hide the fact that the prosper.
ity of Bird City had departed.
The real estate agents, those hardin.
gers of the western boom, who become
harpies of in omen when the booT
bursts, folded their tents like Arabs
and silently stole away" The last out
going agent left a keepsake for Jud.
son mailed TO the door of the Gazette
Office in the shape of neatly-carved
"slab" headstone, which was lettered: