Jap Herron Part 10

"Doc Hall is an optimist," Ellis laughed hollowly. "I'm not so much concerned for myself as for the boy and his mother. You know what J.

W. means to her."

"Bill and I have already talked it over," j.a.p returned. "We're going to be big brothers to J. W. We're going to take turns at taking him for long rides on Judge Bowers's old horse, Jeremiah. Doc Hall said that long, jolty rides would set him up, rosy and fat, in a little while. Bill told me this morning that he had J. W. weighed again, on Hollins's scales, and he has gained three pounds."

Ellis Hinton's face cleared. There was a new elasticity in his step as he crossed the room and laid the copy down on the case. Unconsciously he began to whistle, as he clicked the type in the stick.

CHAPTER VIII

Flossy came into the office, leading the boy by the hand, and called Ellis aside. Old Jeremiah had done wonders for the little fellow; but on Flossy Hinton's face there was a look that boded ill to some one.

"I sent for Brother William to meet me here," she said crisply. "I want you to back up all that I say."

Before Ellis had breathed twice, she was out looking up the street, and in less time than you could think it out, she was back, towing the Judge, who puffed explosively. Ellis and the three boys had retreated to the rear office.

"There is not a bit of use to argue, William," she said, her lips in a hard, straight line. "Ellis has done more than any one else in town could do. When I heard that you had subscribed five thousand dollars to the new church, I concluded that your charity was a little far fetched. Now I want you to subscribe five thousand dollars to the inst.i.tution that is making a man of your son. I want five thousand dollars for the printing office. It is too small, and the press is out of date. We need all that goes into an up-to-date printing office."

Her brother looked upon her tolerantly.

"Keep it up, Floss. It never fazed you to ask favors, and you ain't run down yet."

"It's a shame," she stormed. "Just look at this little shed! Why, even a cross-road blacksmith shop is better."

He looked around appraisingly.

"I reckon it'll house all Ellis's business," he commented.

"Ellis," she flashed, "tell William about the railroad."

Ellis came from the inside office. He generally withdrew from the conferences between Flossy and her brother.

"Wat Harlow told me that two of the big railroad systems have entered into a joint arrangement to shorten their mileage, on through trains to the West. He's got it all fixed for the new track to pa.s.s through Bloomtown. It will give us all the benefit of two railroads."

"You see," said Flossy triumphantly, "the town will boom. People will move in, and a first-cla.s.s newspaper will be the greatest a.s.set."

"I think that the town will take a big start," a.s.sured Ellis. "The boys will have all they can do with job work, and the office is small for our present needs."

"Pap, you should watch us carving letters when we get short,"

interposed Bill. "Last week j.a.p had to carve three A's for Allen's handbill. There are only three of 'em in that case, and Allen wanted to use six. His name is Pawhattan Abram Allen, and he wanted the whole blamed thing spelled out in caps. I told j.a.p it was lucky Allen's folks didn't name him Aaron, on top of all the rest."

"That's good practice for you boys," the Judge snorted. "I'm mighty glad you learned something for all the money I spent on you." He glanced at his sister witheringly; but Flossy had her eyes fixed on her husband.

"I wish," Ellis stirred himself to say, "that the town would boom enough to take all these frame shacks off of Main street, so that the place wouldn't look like a settlement of campers."

"A good fire would help," commented Bill boldly.

Judge Bowers looked over his gla.s.ses at his son.

"Well, when the railroad comes, and the rest of the shacks are moved out, I will write you a check for five thousand dollars," he snorted, turning his rotund form out of the door.

Flossy picked up the boy and flounced out, in speechless indignation.

By argument and cajolery she had succeeded in getting six months apiece for Bill and j.a.p at the School of Journalism, and at twenty the boys were far more expert than Ellis was when he began the publication of the _Herald_. She had set her heart on the new printing office, and her eyes were abrim with tears as she stumbled home.

The week wore on until printing day. It was a day of unimagined exasperations. Everything went wrong. Ellis's usually smooth temper bent under the stormy comments of the boys, and in the late afternoon he developed a violent headache and went home. Things continued to pile up until it was evident that the boys would have to print the paper after dark.

It was ten o'clock when they finished. j.a.p followed Bill to the pavement, pausing to lock the door and slip the key in his pocket. The town was asleep. Not a soul was to be seen on Main street. Bill, who usually took the short cut across the Public Square to his fathers house, turned with j.a.p and walked along Main street to the farther end of the block. At Blanke's drug store, he turned into Spring street.

He was saying, in a tone of mixed penitence and anxiety:

"I wish we hadn't riled Ellis so, to-day. I don't like those headaches he's having so often, and the way his face gets red every afternoon.

If he ever sneaked out and took a drink--But I know he never does."

"Oh, Ellis is all right, now that little J. W. is getting strong," j.a.p insisted.

They had gone some distance in the direction of Flossy's cottage, when Bill looked across an expanse of vacant lots to where a dim light burned in the loft of Bolton's barn.

"They're running a poker game," said Bill wisely.

Almost before the words were gone, a wild shriek rent the air. A flash of light from the barn loft, a scrambling of feet, and a succession of dark objects catapulted the ooze of the barnyard, and it was all ablaze. A stiff breeze was blowing from the southwest. Bill ran to the mill to set the fire whistle, and j.a.p scrambled through a window of the Methodist church and began to fling the chimes abroad, so that he who slept might know that there was a fire in town. There had been no rain for weeks, and the frame structures were ripe for burning.

In less than half an hour the row of stores on Main street, in the block below the _Herald_ office, began to smoke. From Hollins's grocery store a brand was carried by the wind and lodged among the dry s.h.i.+ngles of Summers's saloon. The excitement was augmented, a few minutes later, by a series of pyrotechnic explosions. Bucket brigades were formed, the firemen mostly in undress uniform.

j.a.p and Bill were in their glory. j.a.p was mounted on top of the Town Hall, directing operations. Right down the row rushed the flames, eating up the town. As if in parting salutation, the fiery monster leaped across a vacant lot, thick set with dried weeds, and clutched with heat-red claws at the _Herald_ office.

"This way, men!" yelled j.a.p. "You have to get the press and enough type out to tell about the fire."

Ellis was staring hopelessly at the flame that was licking at the rear of the office. The water was exhausted from the town well, and there was no hope of saving the plant. But youth is omniscient, and the townsmen followed the wildly yelling apprentices and hastened to demolish the office and drag away the debris, some of it already blazing. From the salvage rescued from Price's hardware store, and heaped in a disorderly pile in the Public Square, j.a.p handed out the latest thing in fire fighting apparatus. The flimsy structure, that had been Ellis Hinton's stronghold for almost twenty years, gave way to an a.s.sault with axes, and the contents, pretty well scattered, were left standing. It was nothing that Granger and Harlow's bank went down with little left to show its location save the fire-proof vault, and that only a s.h.i.+ft in the wind prevented the flames from crossing to the fas.h.i.+onable residence section east of Main street.

In the morning the _Herald_ force began business in the ruins of its time-worn shelter, and set up gory accounts of the fire, on brown manila paper with vermilion and black ink. A crowd a.s.sembled to watch the exciting spectacle.

"What's the use of a railroad now?" bleated Judge Bowers. "There ain't no town to run it through."

"Why ain't there?" asked j.a.p sharply.

"Why, all the folks are talking of pulling up stakes and moving to Barton."

"Well, if that is the kind of backbone they have been backing this town with," snapped the youth, his red hair standing erect, "you help them move, and the _Herald_ will show them up for quitters--and fill the town with real men."

And being full of wrath, he proceeded to incorporate this thought in the half column he was setting up. The paper was eagerly snapped up by the crowd.

"Who wrote this?" fairly howled Tom Granger. "I want to hold his grimy hand and help him shout for a bigger and better town."

Ellis shoved j.a.p forward.

"Here is the fire-eater," he announced. j.a.p flushed through the dirt on his face.

"It's true," he said, half shyly. "There's no good in a quitter. The best thing is to smoke them out and get live men to take their places."