CHAPTER XIX
FERGUS'S FAVOURITE POEM
I recall now vividly the growing excitement of those winter days, the interest we all had. Each day brought something new, some surprised comment in a "contemporary," some quotation from a city paper, some curious visitor to see the old Captain, some new subscriber or advertiser, some necessity for adding to our order for "insides."
One of the best ways to attract and interest other people is by going about one's own business as though it were the most wonderful and fascinating thing in the world. People soon begin to look on wistfully, begin to wonder what all this activity and triumphant joyousness is about, and are presently drawn to it as bees are drawn by a blooming clover field. So the printing-office began to be a place of importance and curiosity in Hempfield. The news spread that almost any surprise might be expected in the Star.
"It's that fellow Carr that's doing it," said old Mr. Kenton, voicing the hopeless philosophy of the country when facing competition with the city. "One o' these days, you'll see, he'll get a better job in Bosting, and that'll be the end of him."
In the meantime, however, we were too busy to indulge in any forebodings, and as for Nort the whole great golden world of real life was opening to him for the first time.
No sooner had the interest in the old Captain's autobiography somewhat subsided, and the advertising scheme, with several lesser matters, been disposed of, than Nort's fertile brain began to devise new schemes.
"Say," he exclaimed one winter day, coming in from one of his expeditions and looking us all over as though we were specimens of a curious sort, "this office is a pretty interesting place."
"Just found it out?" grunted Fergus.
"Well," said Nort, "I've suspected it all along, and now I know it. There's the Cap'n, for example. We didn't know we had a gold mine in the Cap'n, now, did we? But we had! Great thing, the Cap'n's story! Finest thing done in country journalism anywhere, at any time, I suppose."