Paul and the Printing Press Part 1

Paul and the Printing Press.

by Sara Ware Ba.s.sett.

CHAPTER I

PAUL CAMERON HAS AN INSPIRATION

It was the vision of a monthly paper for the Burmingham High School that first turned Paul Cameron's attention toward a printing press.

"Dad, how much does a printing press cost?" he inquired one evening as he sat down to dinner.

"A _what_?"

"A printing press."

Mr. Cameron glanced up quizzically from the roast he was carving.

"Aren't you a trifle ambitious?"

Paul laughed.

"Perhaps I am," he admitted. "But I have often heard you say, 'Nothing venture, nothing have.'"

It was his father's turn to laugh.

"Yet why does your fancy take its flight toward a printing press?"

Eagerly Paul bent forward.

"Why you see, sir," he explained, "ever since I was chosen President of '20 I've wanted my cla.s.s to be the finest the Burmingham High ever graduated. I want it to leave a record behind it, and do things no other cla.s.s ever has. There has never been a school paper. They have them in other places. Why shouldn't we?"

Mr. Cameron was all attention now.

"We've plenty of talent," went on Paul with enthusiasm. "Even Mr.

Calder, who is at the head of the English department, a.s.serts that. d.i.c.k Rogers has had a poem printed in the town paper--"

He saw a twinkle light his father's eye.

"Maybe you'd just call it a verse," the boy smiled apologetically, "but up at school we call it a poem. It was about the war. And Eva Hardy has had an essay published somewhere and got two dollars for it."

"You don't say so!"

"Besides, there is lots of stuff about the football and hockey teams that we want to print--accounts of the games, and notices of the matches to be played. And the girls want to boom their Red Cross work and the fair they are going to have. There'd be plenty of material."

"Enough to fill a good-sized daily, I should think," remarked Mr.

Cameron, chuckling.

Paul took the joke good-naturedly.

"How do people run a paper anyhow?" he questioned presently. "Do printing presses cost much? And where do you get them? And do you suppose we fellows could run one if we had it?"

His father leaned back in his chair.

"A fine printing press is a very intricate and expensive piece of property, my son," he replied. "It would take several hundred dollars to equip a plant that would do creditable work. The preparation of copy and the task of getting it out would also take a great deal of time.

Considering the work you already have to do, I should not advise you to annex a printer's job to your other duties."

He saw the lad's face cloud.

"The better way to go at such an undertaking," he hastened to add, "would be to have your publication printed by some established press."

"Could we do it that way?"

"Certainly," Mr. Cameron nodded. "There are always firms that are glad to get extra work if paid satisfactorily for it."

There was a pause.

"The pay is just the rub," Paul confessed frankly. "You see we haven't any cla.s.s treasury to draw on; at least we have one, but there's nothing in it."

The two exchanged a smile.

"But you would plan to take subscriptions," said the elder man. "Surely you are not going to give your literary efforts away free of charge."

"N--o," came slowly from Paul. Then he continued more positively. "Oh, of course we should try to make what we wrote worth selling. We'd make people pay for it. But we couldn't charge much. Most of us have been paying for our Liberty Bonds and haven't a great deal to spare. I know I haven't."

"About what price do you think you could get for a school paper?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought much about it. Perhaps a dollar, or a dollar and a quarter a year. Not more than that."

"And how many members would be likely to take it?"

Paul meditated.

"There are about fifty seniors," he said. "But of course the other three cla.s.ses would subscribe--at least some of them would. We shouldn't confine the thing simply to the doings of the seniors. We should put in not only general school news but items about the lower cla.s.ses as well so that the paper would interest everybody. It ought to bring us in quite a little money. Shouldn't you think we could buy a press and run it for two hundred dollars?"

"Have you considered the price of paper and of ink, son?"

"No; but they can't cost much," was the sanguine response.

"Alas, they not only _can_ but _do_," replied his father.

"Then you think we couldn't have a school paper."

"I did not say that."

"Well, you mean we couldn't make it pay."