Paul and the Printing Press

Paul gazed up at the presses that towered high above his head Frontispiece " The March Hare !" he repeated with enthusiasm. "You've hit it, Cart!" PAGE 10 More than one dignified resident of the town struggled into an incongruous garment " 74 "But I can't take your money, Mr. Carter," gasped Paul " 136 PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS PAUL CAMERON HAS AN INSPIRATION It was the vision of a monthly paper for the Burmingham High School that first turned Paul Cameron's attention toward a printing press. "Dad, how much does a printing press cost?" he inquired one evening as he sat down to dinner. "A what ?" "A printing press." Mr. Cameron glanced up quizzically from the roast he was carving. "Aren't you a trifle ambitious?" Paul laughed. "Perhaps I am," he admitted. "But I have often heard you say, 'Nothing venture, nothing have.'" It was his father's turn to laugh. "Yet why does your fancy take its flight toward a printing press?" Eagerly Paul bent forward. "Why you see, sir," he explained, "ever since I was chosen President of '20 I've wanted my class to be the finest the Burmingham High ever graduated. I want it to leave a record behind it, and do things no other class ever has. There has never been a school paper. They have them in other places. Why shouldn't we?" Mr. Cameron was all attention now. "We've plenty of talent," went on Paul with enthusiasm. "Even Mr. Calder, who is at the head of the English department, asserts that. Dick Rogers has had a poem printed in the town paper—" He saw a twinkle light his father's eye. "Maybe you'd just call it a verse," the boy smiled apologetically, "but up at school we call it a poem. It was about the war. And Eva Hardy has had an essay published somewhere and got two dollars for it." "You don't say so!" "Besides, there is lots of stuff about the football and hockey teams that we want to print—accounts of the games, and notices of the matches to be played. And the girls want to boom their Red Cross work and the fair they are going to have. There'd be plenty of material." "Enough to fill a good-sized daily, I should think," remarked Mr. Cameron, chuckling. Paul took the joke good-naturedly. "How do people run a paper anyhow?" he questioned presently.…