ere publishing
the _Star_ in Hempfield before ever Ed Smith was born."

"I'll tell you what, Cap'n--and Miss Doane," said Nort, "we ought to get
out a paper this week that will show Ed a thing or two, stir things up
a bit."

I saw Anthy turn toward him with a curious live look in her eyes. Youth
had spoken to youth.

"We could do it!" she said, with unexpected energy. "We could just do
it."

Nort unfurled his legs and walked nervously down the office.

"What would you put in her?" asked the practical Fergus.

"Put in her!" exclaimed Nort. "What couldn't you put in her? Put some
life in her, I say. Stir things up."

"I have just written an editorial on William J. Bryan," remarked the
Captain with deliberation.

"My father always used to say," said Anthy, "that the little things of
life are really the big things. I didn't used to think so; it used to
hurt me to see him waste his life writing items about the visits of the
Backuses--you know what visitors the Backuses are--and the big squashes
raised by Jim Palmer, and the meetings of the Masons and the Odd
Fellows; but I believe he was successful with the _Star_ because he
packed it full of just such little personal news."

"Your father," I said, "was interested in people, in everything they
did. It was what he _was_."

"I see that now," said Anthy.

"And when you come to think of it," I said, "we are more interested in
people we know than in people we don't know. We can't escape our own
neighbourhoods--and most of us don't want to."

"That's all right," said Nort; "but it seems to me since I've been in
this town that it is just the things that are most interesting of all
that don't get into the _Star_. Why, there's more amusing and thrilling
news about Hempfield published every day up there on the veranda of the
Hempfield House than gets into the _Star_ in a month. I could publish a
paper, at least once, that would----"

"I have always said," interrupted the Captain, "that the basic human
interest was politics. Politics is the life of the people. Politics----"

Fergus's face cracked open with a smile.

"We might print a few poems."

He said it in such a tone of ironical humour and it seemed so absurd
that we all laughed, except Nort.

Nort stopped suddenly, with his eyes gleaming.

"Why not, Fergus?" he exclaimed. "Great idea, Fergus."

With that he took up an envelope from the desk.

"Listen to this now," he said, "it came this morning; the Cap'