I also had a characteristic exchange with Fergus, in which, as usual, I came off worsted. In those troublous days Fergus was the toiling Atlas upon whose wiry shoulders rested the full weight of that heavenly body. He set most of the type, distributed it again, made up the forms, inked the rollers, printed the paper (for the most part), did all the job work which Hempfield afforded, and smoked the worst pipe in America.
When I told him that I was going to write regularly for the Star and showed him the paragraphs I had brought in (I suspect they were rather long) this was his remark:
"Oh, Lord, more writers!"
It was on this occasion, too, that I really made the acquaintance of the Captain. He was in the best of spirits. He told me how he had beaten the rebels at Antietam. I enjoyed it all very much, and decided that for the time being I would suspend judgment on the pipe incident.
One day I reached the point where I could stand it no longer. So I hitched up the mare and drove to town. All the way along the road I tried to imagine what had taken place in the printing-office.
I thought with a sinking heart that the paper might have been sold, and that my new friends would go away. I thought that Anthy might be carrying out some new and vigorous plan of reconstruction, only somehow I could not feel Anthy's hand in the changes I had seen.
It was all very vivid to me; I had, indeed, a feeling, that afterward became familiar enough, that the Star was a living being, struggling, hoping, suffering, like one of us. In truth, it was just that.
No sooner had I turned in at the gate than I perceived that some mysterious and revolutionary force had really been at work. The gate itself had acquired two hinges where one had been quite sufficient before, and inside the office—what a change was there! It was not so much in actual rearrangement, though the editorial desk looked barren and windswept; it was rather in the general atmosphere of the place. Even Tom, the cat, showed it: when I came in at the door he went out through the window. He was scared! No more would he curl himself contentedly to sleep in editorial chairs; no more make his bed in the office wastebasket. Though it was still early in the morning, Fergus was not reading "Tom Sawyer." No, Fergus was hard at work, and didn't even look around when I came in.
Anthy was there, too, in her long crisp gingham apron, which I always thought so well became her. She had just put down her composing stick, and was standing quite silent, with a curious air of absorption (which I did not then understand), before the dingy portrait of Lincoln on the wall just over the cases. On her desk, not far away, a book lay open. I saw it later: it was Rand's "Modern Classical Philosophers." It represented Anthy's last struggling effort to keep on with her college work. In spite of all the difficulties and distractions of the printing-office, she had never quite given up the hope that some day she might be able to go back and graduate. It had been her fondest desire, the deepest purpose of her heart.
As she glanced quickly around at me I surprised on her face a curious look. How shall I describe it?—a look of exaltation, and of anxiety, too, I thought. But it passed like a flash, and she gave me a smile of friendly recognition, and stepped toward me with the frank and outright way she had. It gave me a curious deep thrill, not, I think, because she was a woman, a girl, and so very good to look upon, but because I suddenly saw her, the very spirit of her, as a fine, brave human being, fighting one of the hard and bitter fights of our common life. I do not pretend to know very much about women in general, and I think perhaps there is some truth in one of Nort's remarks, made long afterward: