"You remember I was confident she would know precisely where to begin?"
was Fisbee's earnest whisper in the willing ear of the long foreman. "Not
an instant's indecision, was there?"
"No, siree!" replied the other; and, as he went down to the press-room to
hunt for a feather-duster which he thought might be found there, he
collared Bud Tipworthy, who, not admitted to the conclave of his
superiors, was whistling on the rainy stairway. "You hustle and find that
dust brush we used to have. Bud," said Parker. And presently, as they
rummaged in the nooks and crannies about the machinery, he melted to his
small assistant. "The paper is saved, Buddie--saved by an angel in light
brown. You can tell it by the look of her."
"Gee!" said Bud.
Mr. Schofield had come, blushing, to join them. "Say, Cale, did you notice
the color of her eyes?"
"Yes; they're gray."
"I thought so, too, show day, and at Kedge Halloway's lecture; but, say,
Cale, they're kind of changeable. When she come in upstairs with you and
Fisbee, they were jest as blue!--near matched the color of our ribbons."
"Gee!" repeated Mr. Tipworthy.
When the editorial chamber had been made so Beat that it almost glowed--
though it could never be expected to shine as did Fisbee and Caleb Parker
and Ross Schofield that morning--the editor took her seat at the desk and
looked over the few items the gentlemen had already compiled for her
perusal. Mr. Parker explained many technicalities peculiar to the Carlow
"Herald," translated some phrases of the printing-room, and enabled her to
grasp the amount of matter needed to fill the morrow's issue.
When Parker finished, the three incompetents sat watching the little
figure with the expression of hopeful and trusting terriers. She knit her
brow for a second--but she did not betray an instant's indecision.
"I think we should have regular market reports," she announced,
thoughtfully. "I am sure Mr. Harkless would approve. Don't you think he
would?" She turned to Parker.
"Market reports!" Mr. Fisbee exclaimed. "I should never have thought of
market reports, nor, do I imagine, would either of my--my associates. A
woman to conceive the idea of market reports!"
The editor blushed. "Why, who would, dear, if not a woman, or a
speculator, and I'm not a speculator; and neither are you, and that's the
reason you didn't think of them. So, Mr. Parker, as there is so much
pressure, and if you don't mind continuing to act as reporter as well as
compositor until after to-morrow, and if it isn't too wet--you must take
an umbrella--would it be too much bother if you went around to all the
shops--stores, I mean--to all the grocers', and the butchers', and that
leather place we passed, the tannery?--and if there's one of those places
where they bring cows, would it be too much to ask you to stop there?--and
at the flour-mill, if it isn't too far?--and at the dry-goods store? And
you must take a blank-book and sharpened pencil, And will you price
everything, please, and jot down how much things are?"