“Come-and-bine what?” asked Juggie.

“The literary element.”

“De literal element?”

“Recitations and so on, I mean.”

“We did have an entertainment,” said Charlie, who was not disposed to forget or disparage the glory of “departed days.”

“But this is something different, and let me explain.  Let us suppose that we take the subject, ‘Days of our Forefathers,’ the times before or at the Revolutionary War.  One of you could be dressed as a farmer in those days, and tell what farmers did; another as printer could tell what printers did, and so on.  That would give you an idea of those days, and make something useful of your club.”

The plan was popular with the boys of the club.  When the subject was proposed to Aunt Stanshy, she made the comment: 

“Some sense in the idea.  The boys will learn something.”

“And then,” said Miss Barry, “when Christmas comes, you can give a Christmas entertainment, and ask an admission fee, and, won’t you give the money to the missions of our Church?  That will be putting another round in the ladder, and the ‘Up-the-Ladder Club’ will go higher still.  I want you to help other people all you can.  I’ll tell you what to do, and be with you.”

The boys agreed to their teacher’s plan.  Sid was specially enthusiastic.  Will Somers said he would help.  Aunt Stanshy had promised to open the rooms of her house, and one December night, when the sky was like the dark face of an Oriental beauty, hung all over with golden jewelry, the White Shields and their friends met at Aunt Stanshy’s.  How happy were the club boys to find there a banner sent by Mr. Walton.  He wrote that Tim Tyler was coming to Sunday-school, and that they had previously secured four scholars, and Tim should be counted the fifth.  Happy knights to earn that banner!

About eight Sid came into the front room dressed in a brown, broad-skirted coat, also wearing small clothes, silver knee-buckles, and buckled shoes.  He took off his cocked hat, made a low bow, and holding out a diminutive newspaper, yellow with age, began: 

“I am a printer.  I had the honor of printing the ‘New Hampshire Gazette,’ which was started in Portsmouth in 1756, and is still published in that good old city.  In those days newspapers were not so numerous as now.  When the Revolutionary War closed there were forty-three papers in the country.  We did not give such crowded or so large sheets as are now published.  My paper, though, was so popular all the spare copies were taken, and I have none by me this moment; but here is a copy of the ‘New England Chronicle,’ that came out in Boston on the 4th of July, 1776.  It has four pages, you will see, measures ten inches by fifteen, say, and each page has three columns.  It was not easy work then to publish a paper.  We had no steam-presses, but hand-power had to do the work, and my arms ache to this day.  It was hard, too, at the time of