The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1902-04-11

by JOHN HOWARD TODD.

per-the Sangamon Boy-but its
career was so full Of oddities that no
body minded that. The easy going
country folk of the Lower Corners
said it was a good paper. Anyhow.
like the good boy, it died young. 1t;
editor-there was a man who never
was duplicated in or out Of the news
paper business.
"That fellow was queer on" said
old Eph Edwards, "but he was smart
erin chain lightnin'. Didyeever read
about Ichabod Crane? I've forgot
who it's by, but this Josh Kinney was
good deal like Ichabod.
'|Read? That man had read more
books than we had in the school Ii
brary, and when it come to debatin'-
well, the whole literary society of
Lower Corners couldn't down him,
and lord knows they tried hard
enough. The judges just waited to
see which side Josh was on, and then
decided that way before the arguin'
commenced. And them long arms O
his could tote more corn stalks to the
shock in a day than any two men in
Rochester township"
Josh Kinney was a farm hand by
day and an editor by night. Some
body said his nerves were made of
iron. He rested his brain by busying
his body, and rested his body by busy
ing his brain, The eyes that were set
far back under shaggy brows never
lost their keenness in the shadows of
his protruding brow. They were the
unfailing signal lights that flashed
the message of vigilant, alert, OBJ
serving mind, Kinney was patient,
else he never would have learned the
printer'sart at odd moments. He
plodding and persistent, else he never
would have toiled far into the night
to bring out the weekly issues of the
Sangamon Boy.
His office was even odder than the
man. Tosee it one could almost guess
what manner of man was its presiding
genius. 1t is standing to-day-a
plain square cabin on the very crown
of a desolate hill five miles removed
from any town. Behind it and shell
tering it from the spite of the winter
wind and the afternoon sun is a grove
of great towering oak trees, lifting
their branches high over the head of
a tangled mass of forest shrubbery.
It's one door is nailed shut, and strong
boards cover the two squares on either
side where windows oncelet in timid
light by day and sent out a ghostly
glimmer Of oil lamps by night.
For ten years not a foot has been
set inside the door. The little old
hand press was removed long ago, and
the worn type-one might find arusty
stick nesting here and there in the
cracks of the board floor, and he might
see bit Of yellow paper tackled near
the door bearing the words in Josh's
own handwriting:
...........
LOAFERS ARE INVITED TO THE
BLACKSMITH SHOP DOWN THE
: ROAD. THIS IS A PRINTERY.
|'''''''''..
Coming from anybody else this
hint might have invited trouble, but
respect for Josh Kinney's iron mus
cles and his teeming brain brought it
only silent obedience.
Lower Corners, which, by the way,
is not village but a farming com
munity, made sport Of Josh when he
first came and started his newspaper.
That was before they knew anything
about the big brain that dominated
his angular body. He managed to get
something into every issue that set his
neighbors thinking and made them
respect him for his learning. Some
times it was an editorial, sometimes a
plea for new methods of agriculture,
sometimes even a bit Of verse. Yes.
there was poetry in Josh Kinney, and
it was just Like him-honely, sincere,
rugged. He could have written TO
mantle tale(5ut he didn't. He just
hde1 MS time and acted itinreallife.
L. Lower Corners to-day there are