The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-02-20


Inside these humble premises the
furniture is barked and battered. Be-
meath the old pine counter lies the
dust Of years.. An antiquatcd green
box safe by the side window is piled
high with wasted government money
in the shape of Congressional Re-
cords and files of old correspondence
which we do not know why we save
yet which we cannot bring ourselves
to throw away. The pigeon-holes of
the walnut desks too are stuffed with
memoranda and impedimenta, col
lected there through many years that
we are always going to clean out on
some day when we can find the time.
Yet on those rainy days or those
holidays when we do have the time
and make noble start at the epochal
renovation, we do not get far into the
mass. For very soon we are sitting
with faded yellow clippings dropped
before us-letters of bygone years
perhaps here and there a once-used
and then discarded press-photograph
of some familiar face, disappeared
these many years, now held in our for
getful fingers. And our gaze is far
away; there is dull ache in our
hearts; we cannot bring ourselves to
the sacrilege of disturbing these mute
testimonials of the cruel flight of
time which by such long neglect on
our part have earned the right to their
repose. We cannot consign to rubbish
basket or furnace fire this papered
litter which comes to US at these
times like voices and faces from the
dead. Better indeed, to let the young
sters do it in those future years when
we likewise shall be but a memory to
this community and this office.
From this apparently systemless
and cluttered place there is a door
opening into long, low-studded
apartment in the rear. In a more
pretentious plant it would be
designated as the mechanical
department.. To US it is only
the Darkroom. Here are laid out
the Clipped and battered imposing
stones and racks of type-cases,
even more abused than the business
furniture out in front The floor is
worn and uneven out here. The knots
+ in the boards are in evidence. Floor
cracks are pressed full of dirt and
/ tiny types, swept there by careless
boys through all the years that have
slipped away-boys who have long
long since become husbands and faith
ers in their turn and taken their des-
tined places in the life of our town.
our state and our nation. Over in the
southwest corner is our old linotype
machine. 1t is wheezy and rheumatic
sure to lie down on US at the wrong
time and someday to go to pieces like
4 the wonderful one-horse shay. Fl
nally, in the opposite corner, sur
rounded by vicious ink-barrels with
COLBY sodes and rolls of newsprint, is
the old Cox-Duplex press that has
} stood by us through the years like {
faithful old animal. 1t has otter
been starved for oil, it is lousy fol
want of care, but it has done it
| uuJy SOIllcilOW, Oll JliC WliOlC iIiOI
sinned against than shining, and WI
could no more bring ourselves to dis
: pose of it and put in stereoptyins
machinery than we could bring our
t selves to dispose of one of GU
i. children.
t This is the home of our little coun
e try paper. 1t is far from being pref
: ty place. Yet we love tive who hav
D labored in it for over a quarter cen
e fury. For in it we see in a thousan
r little ways reminders of the change
e time has wrought-to ourselves, GU
: profession, our town, our nation. w
!. love it most however, for the associa
: lions it has meant to US in the dali
routine of getting out our paper.
The career of the Telegraph bega
in the eighties. The paper was born {
the union of two struggling weeklie
e whose names, editors and financi;
n vicissitudes have long-since passed il
y to small-town history and been TO
e gotten. 1t is an eight-page, seven-co
e umn little paper, often poorly printe
IS lin the cold Vermont winters when II
/ ink viii not flow freely in the foul
L tains of the press or in the warm Ne
l. England summers when the same M
d terial spreads far too copiously