“I’m afraid I’ll never be any better,” said the girl a little sadly.
“Yes, you will!” exclaimed Larry, turning away to hide the tears in his eyes. “I read in our paper to-day of a big doctor that’s coming from Europe to cure people that have the same kind of spinal disease you have.”
“But it costs an awful lot of money,” sighed Lucy.
“I’ll earn it!” said Larry determinedly.
During those days came a letter for Mrs. Dexter which had been sent to Campton from New York and then returned to the metropolis. The communication was from her sister and told about Mrs. Ralston’s bereavement and stated that the widow had decided to pay an extended visit to some of her husband’s folks who lived in another state.
“I hope she finds a good home,” said Larry’s mother, and that evening penned a letter to Mrs. Ralston, telling of the changes that had occurred in the Dexter household.
Larry began his second week of work with better spirits than he had the first. He began to feel confidence in himself. Another boy had been hired to take Peter’s place and Larry lost some of the feeling of being the “cub” copy boy, as the newest arrival on a paper is called.
He was rapidly learning many things that were destined to be useful to him. He could go after proofs now and make no errors, for he had come to distinguish the different kinds of type in which the headings of the stories were printed. There were the big “horse heads,” with three lines of very black type. Then there were the ordinary “display heads,” of two lines, of not quite such heavy letters. Then came “lap” heads, smaller still, “twelve points,” or type about half an inch high, and so on down to the small single-line heads, that were put on only the least important articles.
Larry began to have some idea of the necessity of being quick and accurate. He saw that, even near last-edition time, when everything was on the rush, the reporters and editors kept cool, and, though they had to work fast, they made every motion count.
The boy came to admire the coolness of the veteran reporter who could write a story with a boy standing at his elbow grabbing each page of copy as it was finished and rushing it to the editor, and thence upstairs.