A Modern Instance Part 24

"One my lodgers--well, she was a lady; you can't seem to get gentlemen oftentimes in the summer season, for love or money, and I was puttin' up with her,--breakin' joints, as you may say, for the time bein'--_she_ wrote poetry; 'n' I guess she found it pretty poor pickin'. Used to write for the weekly papers, she said, 'n' the child'n's magazines. Well, she couldn't get more 'n a doll' or two, 'n' I do' know but what less, for a piece as long as that." Mrs. Nash held her hands about a foot apart. "Used to show 'em to me, and tell me about 'em. I declare I used to pity her. I used to tell her I ruther break stone for my livin'."

Marcia sat talking more than an hour to Mrs. Nash, informing herself upon the history of Mrs. Nash's past and present lodgers, and about the ways of the city, and the prices of provisions and dress-goods. The dearness of everything alarmed and even shocked her; but she came back to her faith in Bartley's ability to meet and overcome all difficulties. She grew drowsy in the close air which Mrs. Nash loved, after all her fatigues and excitements, and she said she guessed she would go up and see how Bartley was getting on. But when she stole into the room and saw him busily writing, she said, "Now I won't speak a word, Bartley," and coiled herself down under a shawl on the bed, near enough to put her hand on his shoulder if she wished, and fell asleep.

XV.

It took Bartley two days to write out his account of the logging-camp. He worked it up to the best of his ability, giving all the facts that he had got out of Kinney, and relieving these with what he considered picturesque touches. He had the newspaper instinct, and he divined that his readers would not care for his picturesqueness without his facts. He therefore subordinated this, and he tried to give his description of the loggers a politico-economical interest, dwelling upon the variety of nationalities engaged in the industry, and the changes it had undergone in what he called its _personnel_; he enlarged upon its present character and its future development in relation to what he styled, in a line of small capitals, with an early use of the favorite newspaper possessive,

COLUMBIA'S MORIBUND s.h.i.+P-BUILDING.

And he interspersed his text plentifully with exclamatory headings intended to catch the eye with startling fragments of narration and statement, such as

THE PINE-TREE STATE'S STORIED STAPLE

MORE THAN A MILLION OF MONEY

UNBROKEN WILDERNESS

WILD-CATS, LYNXES, AND BEARS

BITTEN OFF

BOTH LEGS FROZEN TO THE KNEES

CANADIAN SONGS

JOY UNCONFINED

THE LAMPLIGHT ON THEIR SWARTHY FACES.

He spent a final forenoon in polis.h.i.+ng his article up, and stuffing it full of telling points. But after dinner on this last day he took leave of Marcia with more trepidation than he was willing to show, or knew how to conceal. Her devout faith in his success seemed to unnerve him, and he begged her not to believe in it so much.

He seized what courage he had left in both hands, and found himself, after the usual reluctance of the people in the business office, face to face with Mr. Witherby in his private room. Mr. Witherby had lately dismissed his managing editor for his neglect of the true interests of the paper as represented by the counting-room; and was managing the Events himself. He sat before a table strewn with newspapers and ma.n.u.scripts; and as he looked up, Bartley saw that he did not recognize him.

"How do you do, Mr. Witherby? I had the pleasure of meeting you the other day in Maine--at Mr. Willett's logging-camp. Hubbard is my name; remember me as editor of the Equity Free Press."

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Witherby, rising and standing at his desk, as a sort of compromise between asking his visitor to sit down and telling him to go away. He shook hands in a loose way, and added: "I presume you would like to exchange. But the fact is, our list is so large already, that we can't extend it, just now; we can't--"

Bartley smiled. "I don't want any exchange, Mr. Witherby. I'm out of the Free Press."

"Ah!" said the city journalist, with relief. He added, in a leading tone: "Then--"

"I've come to offer you an article,--an account of lumbering in our State.

It's a little sketch that I've prepared from what I saw in Mr. Willett's camp, and some facts and statistics I've picked up. I thought it might make an attractive feature of your Sunday edition."

"The Events," said Mr. Witherby, solemnly, "does not publish a Sunday edition!"

"Of course not," answered Bartley, inwardly cursing his blunder,--"I mean your Sat.u.r.day evening supplement." He handed him his ma.n.u.script.

Mr. Witherby looked at it, with the worry of a dull man who has a.s.sumed unintelligible duties. He had let the other papers "get ahead of him"

on several important enterprises lately, and he would have been glad to retrieve himself; but he could not be sure that this was an enterprise. He began by saying that their last Sat.u.r.day supplement was just out, and the next was full; and he ended by declaring, with stupid pomp, that the Events preferred to send its own reporters to write up those matters. Then he hemmed, and looked at Bartley, and he would really have been glad to have him argue him out of this position; but Bartley could not divine what was in his mind. The cold fit, which sooner or later comes to every form of authors.h.i.+p, seized him. He said awkwardly he was very sorry, and putting his ma.n.u.script back in his pocket he went out, feeling curiously light-headed, as if his rebuff had been a stunning blow. The affair was so quickly over, that he might well have believed it had not happened. But he was sickeningly disappointed; he had counted upon the sale of his article to the Events; his hope had been founded upon actual knowledge of the proprietor's intention; and although he had rebuked Marcia's overweening confidence, he had expected that Witherby would jump at it. But Witherby had not even looked at it.

Bartley walked a long time in the cold winter suns.h.i.+ne, fie would have liked to go back to his lodging, and hide his face in Marcia's hands, and let her pity him, but he could not bear the thought of her disappointment, and he kept walking. At last he regained courage enough to go to the editor of the paper for which he used to correspond in the summer, and which had always printed his letters. This editor was busy, too, but he apparently felt some obligations to civility with Bartley; and though he kept glancing over his exchanges as they talked, he now and then glanced at Bartley also.

He said that he should be glad to print the sketch, but that they never paid for outside material, and he advised Bartley to go with it to the Events or to the Daily Chronicle-Abstract; the Abstract and the Brief Chronicle had lately consolidated, and they were showing a good deal of enterprise. Bartley said nothing to betray that he had already been at the Events office, and upon this friendly editor's invitation to drop in again some time he went away considerably re-inspirited.

"If you should happen to go to the Chronicle-Abstract folks," the editor called after him, "you can tell them I suggested your coming."

The managing editor of the Chronicle-Abstract was reading a ma.n.u.script, and he did not desist from his work on Bartley's appearance, which he gave no sign of welcoming. But he had a whimsical, shrewd, kind face, and Bartley felt that he should get on with him, though he did not rise, and though he let Bartley stand.

"Yes," he said. "Lumbering, hey? Well, there's some interest in that, just now, on account of this talk about the decay of our s.h.i.+pbuilding interests.

Anything on that point?"

"That's the very point I touch on first," said Bartley.

The editor stopped turning over his ma.n.u.script. "Let's see," he said, holding out his hand for Bartley's article. He looked at the first head-line, "What I Know about Logging," and smiled. "Old, but good." Then he glanced at the other headings, and ran his eye down the long strips on which Bartley had written; nibbled at the text here and there a little; returned to the first paragraph, and read that through; looked back at something else, and then read the close.

"I guess you can leave it," he said, laying the ma.n.u.script on the table.

"No, I guess not," said Bartley, with equal coolness, gathering it up.

The editor looked fairly at him for the first time, and smiled. Evidently he liked this. "What's the reason? Any particular hurry?"

"I happen to know that the Events is going to send a man down East to write up this very subject. And I don't propose to leave this article here till they steal my thunder, and then have it thrown back on my hands not worth the paper it's written on."

The editor tilted himself back in his chair and braced his knees against his table. "Well, I guess you're right," he said. "What do you want for it?"

This was a terrible question. Bartley knew nothing about the prices that city papers paid; he feared to ask too much, but he also feared to cheapen his wares by asking too little. "Twenty-five dollars," he said, huskily.

"Let's look at it," said the editor, reaching out his hand for the ma.n.u.script again. "Sit down." He pushed a chair toward Bartley with his foot, having first swept a pile of newspapers from it to the floor. He now read the article more fully, and then looked up at Bartley, who sat still, trying to hide his anxiety. "You're not quite a new hand at the bellows, are you?"

"I've edited a country paper."

"Yes? Where?"

"Down in Maine."

The editor bent forward and took out a long, narrow blank-book. "I guess we shall want your article What name?"

"Bartley J. Hubbard." It sounded in his ears like some other name.

"Going to be in Boston some time?"

"All the time," said Bartley, struggling to appear nonchalant. The revulsion from the despair into which he had fallen after his interview with Witherby was still very great. The order on the counting-room which the editor had given him shook in his hand. He saw his way before him clearly now; he wished to propose some other things that he would like to write; but he was saved from this folly for the time by the editor's saying, in a tone of dismissal: "Better come in to-morrow and see a proof.

We shall put you into the Wednesday supplement."