orms, inked
the rollers, printed the paper (for the most part), did all the job work
which Hempfield afforded, and smoked the worst pipe in America.

When I told him that I was going to write regularly for the _Star_ and
showed him the paragraphs I had brought in (I suspect they _were_ rather
long) this was his remark:

"Oh, Lord, more writers!"

It was on this occasion, too, that I really made the acquaintance of the
Captain. He was in the best of spirits. He told me how he had beaten
the rebels at Antietam. I enjoyed it all very much, and decided that for
the time being I would suspend judgment on the pipe incident.

One day I reached the point where I could stand it no longer. So I
hitched up the mare and drove to town. All the way along the road I
tried to imagine what had taken place in the printing-office.

I thought with a sinking heart that the paper might have been sold, and
that my new friends would go away. I thought that Anthy might be
carrying out some new and vigorous plan of reconstruction, only somehow
I could not feel Anthy's hand in the changes I had seen.

It was all very vivid to me; I had, indeed, a feeling, that afterward
became familiar enough, that the _Star_ was a living being, struggling,
hoping, suffering, like one of us. In truth, it was just that.

No sooner had I turned in at the gate than I perceived that some
mysterious and revolutionary force had really been at work. The gate
itself had acquired two hinges where one had been quite sufficient
before, and inside the office--what a change was there! It was not so
much in actual rearrangement, though the editorial desk looked barren
and windswept; it was rather in the general atmosphere of the place.
Even Tom, the cat, showed it: when I came in at the door he went out
through the window. He was scared! No more would he curl himself
contentedly to sleep in editorial chairs; no more make his bed in the
office wastebasket. Though it was still early in the morning, Fergus was
not reading "Tom Sawyer." No, Fergus was hard at work, and didn't even
look around when I came in.

Anthy was there, too, in her long crisp gingham apron, which I always
thought so well became her. She had just put down her composing stick,
and was standing quite silent, with a curious air of absorption (which I
did not then understand), before the dingy portrait of Lincoln on the
wall just over the cases. On her desk, not far away, a book lay open. I
saw it later: