o which they so lightly disappeared by whim; a
gaunt, silent man, almost wholly deaf, who stood in Dave Cowan's place
and set type with machine-like accuracy or distributed it with
loose-fingered nimbleness, seizing many types at a time and scattering
them to their boxes with the apparent abandon of a sower strewing seed.
He, too, was but a transient, wherever he might be found, but he had no
talk of the outland where gypsies were, and to Wilbur he proved to be of
no human interest, so that the boy neglected the dusty office for the
more attractive out-of-doors, though still inking the forms for the
Wednesday edition, because a quarter is a good thing to have.

When Terry Stamper brought the pail of beer now the new printer drank
abundantly of the frothy stuff, and for a time glowed gently with a
suggestive radiance, as if he, too, were almost moved to tell of strange
cities; but he never did. Nor did he talk instructively about the
beginnings of life and how humans were but slightly advanced simians. He
would continue to set type, silent and detached, until an evening when
he would want to go somewhere on a train--and go. He did not smoke, but
he chewed tobacco; and Wilbur, the apprentice, desiring to do all things
that printers did, strove to emulate him in this interesting vice; but
it proved to offer only the weakest of appeals, so he presently
abandoned the effort--especially after Winona had detected him with the
stuff in his mouth, striving to spit like an elderly printer. Winona was
horrified. Smoking was bad enough!

Winona was even opposed to his becoming a printer. Those advantages of
the craft extolled by Dave Cowan were precisely what Winona deemed
undesirable. A boy should rather be studious and of good habits and
learn to write a good hand so that he could become a bookkeeper, perhaps
even in the First National Bank itself--and always stay in one place.
Winona disapproved of gypsies and all their ways. Gypsies were rolling
stones. She strove to entice the better nature of Wilbur with moral
placards bearing printed bits from the best authors. She gave him an
entire calendar with an uplifting sentiment on each leaf. One paying
proper attention could scarcely have lived the year of that calendar
without being improved. Unfortunately, Wilbur Cowan never in the least
cared to know what day in the month it was, and whole weeks of these
homilies went unread. Winona was watchful, however, and fertile of
resource