Читать книгу Will Bradley, His Chap Book. An account, in the words of the dean of American typographers, of his graphic arts adventures онлайн

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You don’t like arithmetic, anyway.

“Mother,” you ask, “may I go to work and earn money so I can learn to be an artist?”

Your mother is troubled. Finally she says, “Perhaps it will be for the best.”

You go to the office of the Iron Agitator, that later became Iron Ore. George A. Newett is the owner and editor. This is the George A. Newett and the newspaper that were later sued for libel by Theodore Roosevelt. The trial took place in Marquette, Michigan, and Mr. Roosevelt won a verdict of six cents.

You are put to work washing-up a Gordon press. Then you receive your first lesson in feeding. There is power, a small engine mounted on an upright boiler, for the newspaper press. The two jobbers are kicked. Having half an hour of leisure you learn the lay of a lower-case beside the window—where you can proudly wave to the schoolchildren as they are going home to their noon meal. You are now a working man—wages three dollars a week.

Country newspaper shops train and use local help for straight matter. For job work, ads and presswork they depend upon itinerant job printers, who seldom remain as long as six months in any one town. When the Iron Ore job printer leaves you are sorry. He has been a kind and patient teacher. You are now twelve. Mr. Newett employs a new devil and you set jobs, advertising display, make up the paper and are responsible for all presswork. Your wages are increased to six dollars a week. When the motor power fails, as it does frequently, you go out on the street and employ off-shift miners to operate the press by means of a crank attached to the flywheel.