Mark Tidd, Editor Part 19

That night we put these all up, and the next morning the town was talking. I'll bet twenty folks stopped in the office to ask what it was about, but mum was the word with us. We wouldn't peep.

"It's so," says Mark Tidd. "Every w-w-word of it. This town's been insulted like no town was ever insulted before. It's a shame and somethin' ought to be done about it. The Board of Trade ought to do somethin'."

"But who insulted us?"

"The whole thing's in the n-n-next p-paper," says Mark, getting sort of excited and stuttering like everything. "Wait till the paper comes out."

"We want to know now," says the man.

"Well," says Mark, "I'm sorry, but it hain't possible to accommodate you. This is a newspaper. It's p-printed to give news. That's what we have to sell, and we can't give it away any more than the grocer would give you a p-p-pound of cheese."

"I'll pay you for it," says the man. "Your paper costs a nickel. Well, there's your nickel. Now give me the news."

"No," says Mark, "that wouldn't be f-f-fair. Other folks have to wait till their paper comes, and so will you." And that was the end of it, though the man kept on asking, and so did other folks.

By the time Thursday got around the town was pretty much worked up. You haven't any idea how much folks think of their town till something happens, and then up in the air they go. Well, Wicksville was up in the air, you can bet, and it looked like it was up there to stay. Some folks was for having a public meeting about it, but others pointed out it was foolish to have a public meeting till you knew what you were going to have it about.

Other folks said, though, that as long as you knew your town had been insulted, what was the difference _how_ it was insulted or who did it?

Something ought to be done. Of course we didn't do a thing to stop people from feeling that way, either.

At last the _Trumpet_ went to press, and she was a dandy. Across the front page was a big head-line:

WICKSVILLE INSULTED BY EAGLE CENTER

Then, side by side, we printed interviews, heading each one appropriately. Mr. Wiggamore, the justice of the peace at Eagle Center, said every time a loafer came into his court the first question he asked him was, did he come from Wicksville. That was pretty good for a send-off, letting on that Wicksville folks were loafers, but he went farther than that. He said when he had to drive through the country he would go out of his way five miles before he would drive through our town, because our streets were so rotten they weren't fit to drive cattle over, let alone a horse and buggy. We knew that would rile the folks, because we do take pride in our streets.

Next came Mr. Smart, the grocer. He said he wouldn't do business in Wicksville except on a cash basis. That he'd never seen a man from Wicksville he'd trust with a red-hot stove. And he said the town looked like somebody pa.s.sing in the night had dropped it by accident and forgotten it. Also he said that the man that dropped it was probably mighty glad of it.

Then came Mr. Pilkins, town clerk, and he gave his opinion that Wicksville was the worst-looking, most run-down, dilapidated, out-at-heel village in Michigan. He said it was a shame; that the rest of the towns in the country ought to take up a collection to help Wicksville folks paint their houses. He said it was his experience that Wicksville folks were ashamed of where they lived, and didn't let on unless they were cornered, and he said that when they thought they'd be believed they always let on they came from Eagle Center.

Mr. Stoddy said that Wicksville didn't have enterprise enough to keep the hogs out of Main Street. Now that was a lie if there ever was one, and it made me kind of mad myself. He said the best men in our town were the women, and that so fax's he could see there wasn't any reason for keeping up such a town at all unless it was that no other town wanted such a lot of folks to live in it.

Well, those are just samples. The men that said them were more than nine-tenths joking, all right, but when you saw what they said right in cold type it looked pretty bad. Whee! but it looked bad.

Then, right on top of those insults, and a lot more, we printed another big head-line:

SHALL EAGLE CENTER STEAL OUR TROLLEY LINE?

Then we printed the story about the trolley line, and what was going on.

And we more than hinted that if Eagle Center got a chance it would do something underhanded to influence the line to go that way. And we pointed out the benefits of the line to Wicksville, and what money it would bring to town, and all that. My! it was a screamer.

Then, inside, we printed an editorial by Mark Tidd, which asked our folks if they wanted anything to do with a town that thought about us the way Eagle Center did. He asked if we wanted to trade with them, or visit with them. He wanted to know why the Board of Trade didn't meet and fix up to boycott Eagle Center, and he ended up by demanding why something wasn't done at once to see to it Wicksville got that trolley line for itself.

You wouldn't believe it, but we ran out of papers before they'd had time to dry, and had to turn to and print some more. Yes, sir, we printed a whole hundred extra, and sold every one of them. Wherever you looked was a man reading the paper, maybe out loud to a crowd. It was funny. Men stood shaking their fists and scowling and making speeches and tearing around like they was crazy. There was some talk of organizing a party to go over to Eagle Center to dare them to fight, but this was overruled.

Anyhow, everybody was mad, and when Spragg, of the Eagle Center _Clarion_, came out of the hotel and sent his boys to sell papers, the crowd took after him and chased him up to his room, and he didn't dare come down until the town marshal went home and put on his star and then escorted him to the train. Spragg never waited to see what became of his papers, but just went away from there as fast as he could.

I don't believe he was exactly clear why the folks was so turned against him, but he soon found out, all right.

Well, there was a ma.s.s meeting, and our folks adopted resolutions paying their respects to Eagle Center and to everybody that lived in it, and they vowed they wouldn't have any dealings with the town or anybody in it. They appointed committees and everything.

Mark and the rest of us were at the meeting, and we got busy getting subscriptions. Civic pride was the tune we played.

"Here," says Mark, "is a paper all our own. It's a b-b-better paper than Eagle Center's. Yet you f-folks let an Eagle Center man come in here and sell that paper of his, and you r-refuse to buy ours. Now's the time to show them. If you mean what you say, why, cut out that Eagle Center paper and dig down for a dollar 'n' a quarter to subscribe for your own."

That was the way he talked, and the rest of us took a leaf out of his book. And it got results, too. That night we took more than fifty subscriptions. Which was pretty good. We thought it had disposed forever of the Eagle Center _Clarion_, but it hadn't. Anyhow, it hadn't disposed of Mr. Spragg, who seemed to have got a grudge against us. He wasn't much of a newspaper man, but as an enemy he did pretty well, so we found out before we were through with him.

CHAPTER X

"We've been sort of neglectin' Rock," says I to Mark Tidd, that evening.

"We have been perty b-busy," says he, "but we better go out to see him to-morrow."

"Fine," says I. "I liked his looks."

"Man With the Black Gloves is in t-town," says Mark.

"When did you see him?" says I.

"He drove in a couple of hours ago."

"Hum!" says I. "He's comin' for somethin'."

"Yes," says Mark, and wrinkled his fat face all up like he was puzzled.

"D'you know," says he, "that we don't even know his n-n-name?"

"That's right," says I.

"Nor where he hails from."

"Correct," says I.

"Let's see what we kin find out," says he.

So we went off to the hotel and asked questions, but we didn't find out anything. Seems like the man never stayed there overnight and didn't register. n.o.body we could find had ever spoken to him, and n.o.body had ever seen him before a week or so ago. He just _was_ and that's all we could find out about him.

"T-try the livery stable," says Mark.

"What for?" says I.

"See if anybody there recognizes his horse," says Mark, impatient-like.

Now there was a real idea, and I wished I'd thought of it myself, but I didn't. It took Mark for that. When he missed thinking of a thing it was a pretty foggy day, I tell you.