“We’ll try you; and I’m sure you have lots of reserve force, Hetty,” cried Patsy, jumping up impulsively to take the artist’s soiled, thin hand in her own.  “Come with me to the hotel and I’ll get you a room.  Where is your baggage?”

“Didn’t bring it.  I wasn’t sure I’d like the country, or that you’d care to trust me.  In New York they know me for what I’m worth, and I get lots of work and good advice—­mixed with curses.”

“We’ll send for your trunk,” said Patsy, leading the girl up the street.

“No; it’s in hock.  But I won’t need it.  With no booze to buy I can invest my earnings in wearing apparel.  What a picturesque place this is!  Way back in the primitive; no hint of those namby-pamby green meadows and set rows of shade trees that make most country towns detestable; rocks and boulders—­boulders and rocks—­and the scraggly pines for background.  The wee brook has gone crazy.  What do you call it?”

“Little Bill Creek.”

“I’m going to stab it with my pencil.  Where it bumps the rocks it’s obstinate and pig-headed; where it leaps the little shelves of slate it’s merry and playful; where it sweeps silently between the curving banks it is sulky and resentful.  The Little Bill has moods, bless its heart!  Moods betoken character.”

Patsy secured for Hetty a pleasant room facing the creek.

“Where will you work, at the office or here?” she asked.

“In the open, I guess.  I’ll run over the telegraph news to get a subject for the day’s cartoon, and then take to the woods.  Let me know what other pictures you want and I’ll do ’em on the run.  I’m a beast to work.”

Arthur Weldon, in his capacity as advertising manager, wrote to all the national advertisers asking their patronage for the Millville Daily Tribune.  The letters were typewritten by the office stenographer on newly printed letterheads that Fitzgerald, the job printer, had prepared.  Some of the advertisers were interested enough in Arthur’s novel proposition to reply with questions as to the circulation of the new paper, where it was distributed, and the advertising rates.  The voting man answered frankly that they had 27 subscribers already and were going to distribute 400 free copies every day, for a time, as samples, with the hope of increasing the subscription list.  “I am not sure you will derive any benefit at all from advertising in our paper,” he added; “but we would like to have you try it, and you can pay us whatever you consider the results warrant.”

To his astonishment the advertisements arrived, a great many from very prominent firms, who accepted his proposal with amusement at his originality and a desire to help the new venture along.

“Our square statement of facts has given us a good start,” he told the girls.  “I’m really amazed at our success, and it’s up to you to make a paper that will circulate and make trade for these trustful advertisers.”