THE NINE-TENTHS

A WEEKLY WORD ABOUT MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN

* * * * *

MY MOTTO

I ACCEPT LIFE LARGELY, BUT NOT IN DETAILS

* * * * *

SOME OF THE DETAILS NOT ACCEPTED
ARE

Anything that prevents a child from being well born
and from fulfilling its possibilities.

Anything that prevents a woman or man from using
every good side of her or his nature.

ABOUT THESE DETAILS NO DOUBT: 

DISEASE
EXCESS
WANT
OVERWORK
CHILD LABOR

And let’s avoid jealousy, quarrels, ridicule, meanness,
and the rest of the mosquito things.

Otherwise:  what a glorious world.

This didn’t please him altogether, but he wanted to be definite and simple, and he wanted to show that he wasn’t a narrow partisan.

Thus the first number came to be.  As he turned it out, Billy rushed it in batches to the compositors, and when finally it all came back in strips of type, it was hurried down to the idlers in the basement.  At ten-thirty that chilly, dust-blowing morning, when the sun-stricken air glittered with eddies of motes, Joe, sitting at his desk, had the exquisite rapture of feeling the building tremble.

He rushed to his mother, and exulted.

“Can’t you feel the press going?  Listen!”

Truly the new life had begun—­the vision was beginning to crystallize in daily living.

“We’re in the fight now, mother!” he cried.  “There’s something doing!”

And later, when Joe stood at the back of the press and that first complete sheet came through, he picked it up as if it were a new-born child, as indeed it was, wet, drippy, forlorn, and weird, and yet a wonder and a miracle.  Joe looked on his own creation—­the little sheets—­the big, black The Nine-Tenths—­the clear, good type.  He was awed and reduced almost to tears.

He mailed a copy to Myra with a brief note: 

DEAR MYRA,—­Here’s the answer to your question.  I’m doing the inclosed, and doing it in West Tenth Street.  Do you know the neighborhood?  Old Greenwich Village, red, shabby, shoddy, common, and vulgar.  Mother and I are as happy as children.  How are you?  Your letter is splendid.  I am sure you will come to understand.  When are you returning to New York?

  As ever,

  JOE BLAINE.

And he thought, “Now I have something to show Sally Heffer!”

III

OTHERS:  AND SALLY HEFFER

Joe filled a stiff cloth portfolio with a batch of 9/10s (abbreviation for home use), pulled his gray hat over his bushy hair, and went over and tapped the collapsible Slate on the shoulder.

“Yes, Mr. Joe.”

“Nathan,” cried Joe, excitedly, “if there’s a rush of subscribers while I’m gone, make ’em stand in line, and each wait his turn.  But don’t let them block the car tracks—­string ’em around the corner.”