The Gentleman from Indiana - Page 126/212

Parker made no effort to rise, but lay glaring at the ceiling, breathing

hard. He remained in that position for a long time, until finally the

glaze wore away from his eyes and a more rational expression settled over

his features. Mr. Fisbee addressed him timidly: "You don't think we could

reduce the size of the sheet?"

"It would kill him," answered his prostrate companion. "We've got to fill

her solid some way, though I give up; I don't know how. How that man has

worked! It was genius. He just floated around the county and soaked in

items, and he wrote editorials that people read. One thing's certain: we

can't do it. We're ruining his paper for him, and when he gets able to

read, it'll hurt him bad. Mighty few knew how much pride he had in it. Has

it struck you that now would be a precious good time for it to occur to

Rod McCune to come out of his hole? Suppose we go by the board, what's to

stop him? What's to stop him, anyway? Who knows where the boss put those

copies and affidavits, and if we did know, would we know the best way to

use 'em? If we did, what's to keep the 'Herald' alive until McCune lifts

his head? And if we don't stop him, the 'Carlow County Herald' is

finished. Something's got to be done!'"

No one realized this more poignantly than Mr. Fisbee, but no one was less

capable of doing something of his own initiation. And although the Tuesday

issue was forthcoming, embarrassingly pale in spots--most spots--Mr.

Martin remarked rather publicly that the items were not what you might

call stirring, and that the unpatented pages put him in mind of Jones's

field in winter with a dozen chunks of coal dropped in the snow. And his

observations on the later issues of the week (issues which were put forth

with a suggestion of spasm, and possibly to the permanent injury of Mr.

Parker's health, he looked so thin) were too cruelly unkind to be repeated

here. Indeed, Mr. Fisbee, Parker, the luckless Mr. Schofield, and the

young Tipworthy may be not untruthfully likened to a band of devoted

mariners lost in the cold and glaring regions of a journalistic Greenland:

limitless plains of empty white paper extending about them as far as the

eye could reach, while life depended upon their making these terrible

voids productive; and they shrank appalled from the task, knowing no means

to fertilize the barrens; having no talent to bring the still snows into

harvests, and already feeling-in the chill of Mr. Martin's remarks--a

touch of the frost that might wither them.