Page:The Pacific Monthly volume 4.djvu/379

Rh earn a penny, and often he was very cold and. tired and hungry. At last his mother grew better. But little Tim's crippled leg grew very bad and at last he had to stop working. He grew worse and then there was a fever, and when the doctor came he said '^Crippled Tim" would die. His mother did all she could for him, but it was no use, and when the doctor came the last day and heard the story of how Tim had worked while his mother was sick, there were tears in his eyes and he bent over the bed and said something about a "little hero," but Tim did not hear it. He was dead. And probably if he had heard he would only have wondered what the doctor meant.

Tim did not realize that his work had saved a human life. It had never occurred to him that he was a hero.

"Vote for Brodie!"

"Thiele for Official Editor!"

"Milwaukee in 1901!"

"Smith wins the essay laureatship!"

"Ella Wheeler Wilcox has consented to act as Judge of Poetry!"

"The Pacific Coast is the most active section of the country!"

"A. J. was never in such a flourishing condition as at present!"

"Once an amateur, always an amateur."

HOULD the average reader chance to pick up a small paper containing such notes as the foregoing, with various longer editorials telling about a certain N. A. P. A., discussing the contents of other papers, debating public questions, indulging in friendly personalities, and the like; and perhaps with a few poems, essays and stories, it might interest him to obtain a clue to these mysterious phases. He would at least learn that the paper in question was devoted to some hobby possessing unusual powers of fascination for those engaged in it.

Herein the learned reader would be quite right. If there is any pursuit more delightful for bright boys and girls, as well as for not a few of larger growth, than amateur journalism has proved itself to be, the combined researches of a whole host of the cleverest young people of America has failed to discover it. Fun, pleasant acquaintance and warm friends, practical training as writers, knowledge of journalistic methods, parliamentary practice, literary equipment, a

chance for free expression, broadening of ideas, are a part only of the benefits which accrue to the amateur editor or author.

"Every boy his own editor!" This was the thought that sprang up in the minds of Young America when the cheap printing press came into existence in the late 6o's. Accordingly, every boy who could get hold of a press prepared to print a little paper for the entertainment of himself and friends, and sometimes with a view of financial profit. These were filled with whatever matter lay at hand — ^jokes, anecdotes, local news, personal items, puzzles, and the like; and the boys derived both fun and experience from the process. Isolated ventures had been made at different times, one of the earliest "pre-historic" amateurs being Nathaniel Hawthorne, who isued a manuscript paper in his sixteenth year. Now, however, boys' papers appeared on every side. All sorts of names were assumed, such as "Boys' Gazette," "Patriot," "Our Bovs," "Dew Drop," "True Blue," "Star," "Ranger," "Whacker," "Young Enterprise," "Comet," "Cornucopia," "American Youth," and many others. Charles Scribner, now head of the famous Scribner Publishing House in New York, was one of these enthusiastic young editors, and still treasures the solitary remaining file of his little paper, "Merry Moments." I have a letter from Mr. Scribner in which he speaks in the highest terms of his pleasant recollections of amateur days.