St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1904-01-20
Ezra
Simpkins'
Scoop
Had No Call to Leather. but
Sailed High on Ink
From. Letters From Self Made Mer-
chant to HIS Son." by George Horace
Lorimer. BY permission of Small, May
.aa7d & Co., Publishers, Boston

mind the case of my old friend Jere-
ider man in the Boston leather trade
than jeremiah, nor bigger scamp
that the law can't touch than his son
Ezra. There isn't an ounce of real
meanness Ia Ezra's whole body, but
he's just naturally and unintentionally
a maverick. When he came out Of col
lege his father thought that a few
years. experience in the hide depart
ment of Graham & Co. would be good
thing for him before he tackled the
leather business. So I wrote to send
him on and I would give him job,
supposing of course that I was getting
a yearling of the steady, old, reliable
Simpkins strain.
I was little uneasy when Ezra re-
ported, because he didn't just look as
if he had had a call to leather. He was
a tall, spare New Englander, with one
of those knobby foreheads which has
been pushed out by the overcrowding
Of the brain or bulged by the thicken-
ing of the skull, according as you like
or dislike the man. His manners were
easy or familiar by the same standard.
He told me right at the start that
while he didn't know just what he
wanted to do he was dead sure that 1t
wasn't the leather business. It seemed
that he had said the same thing to his
father and that the old man had an
swered, 'Tut, tut" and told him to
forget it and to learn hides.
SirnnEirS Ioarppd all that hQ wanted
to know about the packing industry in
thirty days, and learned all that
wanted to know about Ezra in the
same time. Pork packing seemed to be
the only thing that he wasn't interested
in. I got his resignation one day just
five minutes before the one which l
was having written out for him was
ready, for I will do Simpkins the JUS
tice to say that there was nothing slow
about him. He and his father split up
temporarily over it; and of course it
cost me the old mans trade and friend
ship. I want to say right here that the
easiest way in the world to make enc
mics is to hire friends.
I lost sight of Simpkins for awhile,
and then he turned up at the Office one
morning as friendly and familiar as
ever. Said he was a reporter and want
ed to interview me on the December
wheat deal. Of course 1 wouldn't talk
on that. but gave him little father
ly advice-told him he would sleep in a
hall bedroom all his life if he didn't
quit his foolishness and go back to his
father, though didn't really believe it.
He thanked me and went off and wrote
a column about what might have said
about December wheat, and somehow
gave the impression that had said it.
The next heard of Simpkins he was
dead. The Associated Press dispatches
announced it, the Cuban junta con-
firmed it and last of all long dispatch
from Simpkins himself detailed the cir
cumstances leading up to the "atroc-
ity," the headlines in his paper called
it.
1 got long wire from Ezra's father
asking me to see the managing editor
and get at the facts for him. 1t seemed
that the paper had thought a heap of
Simpkins and that he had been sent
out to Cuba as correspondent and sta
toned with the insurgent army. Simp-
kins in Cuba had evidently lived up to
the reputation of Simpkins in Chicago.
When there was any news he sent it,
and when there wasn't he just made
news and sent that along.
The first word of his death had come
in his own letter, brought across on a
flibustering steamer and wired on
from Jacksonville. 1t told, with close
attention to detail-sOmething he had
learned since he left mellow he had
strayed away from the little band Of
insurgents with which he had been
out scouting and had blundered into
the Spanish lines. He had been prompt
~ made prisoner, and, despite his pa
pers proving his American citizenship
and the nature of his job and the red
cross on his sleeve, he had been tried
by drumhead court martial and SEN
fenced to be shot at dawn. All this he
had written out and then that his ac-
count might be complete he had gone
on and imagined his own execution.
This was written in a sort of pigeon,
or perhaps you would call it black
Spanish, English, and let on to be the
work of the eyewitness to whom
Simpkins had confded his letter He
had been the sentry over the prisoner,
and for small bride in hand and the
promise of larger one from the paper
he had turned his back on Simpkins
while he wrote out the story, and ait
erward had deserted and carried it to
the Cuban lines.
The account ended, '3Then, as the or
der to fire was given by the lieutenant.
Senior Simpkins raised his eyes toward
heaven and cried, I protest in the name
of my American citizenship At the
end of the letter, and not intended for
publication, was scrawled: This is
bully scoop for you, boys, but it's pref
ty tough on me- Goodby. Simpkins."
The managing editor dashed tear
from his eye when he read this to me
and gulped a little as he said: 81 can't
help it. He was such a ID thought
full boy. Why, he even remembered to
inclose descriptions for the picturesw
Simpkins' last story covered the
whole of the front page and three col