JOSEPH K. ATWATER & CO.
127 South Iowa St,
Steam Pumps.

THE Organstep
BY Florence Atwater

The Organstep was seated at his organ in a
In some beautifil words of vagle and brir
But he was a gReat organstep and always
When the soil is weary
And the mind is drearq
I would play music like a vast amen
The way it sounds in a church of new
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Such was the first issue, complete, of The North End Daily Oriole.  What had happened to the poem was due partly to Atwater & Rooter’s natural lack of experience in a new and exacting trade; partly to their enviable unconsciousness of any necessity for proof-reading; and somewhat to their haste in getting through the final and least interesting stage of their undertaking; for of course so far as the printers were concerned, the poem was mere hack work anti-climax.

And as they later declared, under fire, anybody that could make out more than three words in five of Florence’s ole handwriting was welcome to do it.  Besides, what did it matter if a little bit was left out at the end of one or two of the lines?  They couldn’t be expected to run the lines out over their margin, could they?  And they never knew anything crazier than makin’ all this fuss, because:  Well, what if some of it wasn’t printed just exactly right, who in the world was goin’ to notice it, and what was the difference of just a few words different in that ole poem, anyhow?

For by the time these explanations (so to call them) took place, Florence was indeed makin’ a fuss.  Her emotion, at first, had been happily stimulated at sight of “BY Florence Atwater.”  A singular tenderness had risen in her—­a tremulous sense as of something almost sacred coming at last into its own; and she hurried to distribute, gratis, among relatives and friends, several copies of the Oriole, paying for them, too (though not without injurious argument), at the rate of two cents a copy.  But upon returning to her own home, she became calm enough (for a moment or so) to look over the poem with attention to details.  She returned hastily to the Newspaper Building, but would have been wiser to remain away, since all subscribers had received their copies by the time she got there; and under the circumstances little reparation was practicable.

She ended her oration—­or professed to end it—­by declaring that she would never have another poem in their ole vile newspaper as long as she lived.

“You’re right about that!” Henry Rooter agreed heartily.  “We wouldn’t let another one in it.  Not for fifty dollars!  Just look at all the trouble we took, moiling and toiling, to get your ole poem printed as nice as we could, so it wouldn’t ruin our newspaper, and then you come over here and go on like this, and all this and that, why, I wouldn’t go through it again for a hunderd dollars!  We’re makin’ good money anyhow, with our newspaper, Florence Atwater.  You needn’t think we depend on you for our living!”