Evening Star Newspaper, December 13, 1931, Page 92

Who Wrote “Pigs Is Pigs.” OLLINS knocked the ash out of his pipe. We had been talking about great newspaper men—Dana, Gree- ley and the rest. “When you talk about great newspaper men,” Collins said, “I am with you about those fellows. But when it ccmes to the greatest a good deal depends on what you mean by greatest, and on what you mean by newspaper man. Do you know anything about Lee Tarcy?” " “Lee Tarcy?” I said. “Wait a minute, isn’t he the man that owns a chain of 10 or 12 small-town weeklies out in the Middle West somgwhere?” “That's the man,” said Collins. you about him.” And he did: “Let me tell OWN in Arkansas—sald Colins—there is 2 D town called Hexterville, the county seat of Hexter County, and an old fellow named Brent ran a paper there along after the Civil War, the Hexter County Clarion. It had a circulation of about 230 copies and was eight pages, small size, and never did amount to much. Old Brent was 70 and rheumatic and the paper just about paid for his food and rheu- matism medicine. He had an old press, flat bed and hand power, and one decrepit job press, and type cast about the year one. One day a long, lank hill billy, gaunt as a skeleton, climbed up out of Whisky Gorge and tramped into the Clarion office, rifle in the crook of his arm, a sack with a gallon of moon- shine slung over his shoulder, a 15-year-old boy following along behind him. Old Brent was sitting behind his pine desk inside the window, and he looked up. “You all the man that runs this yere paper?” the giant skeleton asked. “This yere boy of mine he wants to l'arn the newspaper busi- ness.” “Not here,” said old Brent. “I can't afford a helper. I do everything myself. I couldn’t pay him.” “We ain’t wantin’ no pay,” said the hill billy, easing himself of the bag with its jug of moon- shine. “He ain’'t worth none, I reckon. I got nine sons and he’s the ninth. He’s the least of the lot.” The boy was undersize, even among ordi- nary boys. He was timid, too, which mighty few hill billies are. At any rate, after a lot of palaver, old Brent and Wash Tarcy came to an agreement that Lee Tarcy was to have a trial as a helper in the printing shop, to receive food and a sleeping place and no wages for a year, and at the end of that time old Brent weculd decide whether Lee Tarcy was worth wages. Wash Tarcy was fully satisfied; he said the boy was no use to him and he left the jug of moonshine. “So long, pap,” Lee Tarcy said as his father went out. “S’long,” the old fellow said, and went back into Whisky Gorge to distill his moonshine and cut railroad ties and grow his corn and pota- toes. Old Brent questioned Lee Tarcy and learned that the kid had got himself some schooling, a privilege he was permitted because he was not much use in the work at home. “Lee,” said old Brent, “I reckon you and I will get along together right well. There's quite a bit of work you can ease me with, and I can teach you’ all I know about newspapers. That ain’t much. And it's a hard life.” “I want to be a newspaper man,” said the kid. “I don’t care how hard it is. I don’t want to be a hill billy and make ‘shine.’ ” “Just 50,” said old Brent. “Here's this week’s Clarion. Read it over and see what it’s like, and if you want to, then you can go out and see if you can pick up an item of news and write it up. I'm going to snooze.” ITH that the old man closed his eyes and went to sleep, and the young hill billy took the copy of the Clarion ond read it. On the fourth page, fir n, old Brent had his editorial. Somet e the edi- torial and sometimes he t, and this time he had clipped it. It was headed “Superi- ority of Poland China Hogs,” and old Brent had clipped it from some agricultural paper, print- ing it in full. Lee read this. It seemed a wise and sensible editorial. He read on through the locals and the fillers, and old Brent slept on. Lee finally folded the paper and stuck it in his hip pocket and went out, closing the screen door gently behind him, He was going ot to pick up his first news item. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. €, DECEMBER 13, 1931 “W here’s that old idiot that wrote that Poland China lie?” You can picture him, an undersized hill billy, tanned as brown as leather, tow-colored hair under a homemade hay hat, freckled, bare- footed, clad only in blue overalls with one strap over a shoulder, and a faded blue cotton shirt. Even in Hexterville he looked jay. He had not a cent in his pocket. Saturday was market day and a dozen teams were tied here and there along the street, but that was not news. He walked down the street, looking from side to side, and so he came to the small square in front of the hotel. Here was the town pump, an iron affair once painted red, but now rusty. A tin cup hung from it and the kid stopped at the pump for a drink. The iron handle of the pump was only half its proper length and a girl of 12 or so was trying to manipulate the short handle and hold the tin cup at the same time. In all his life Lee had never seen anything as beautiful as this girl. He had never guessed that anything could be as beautiful. She had gold curls and a glowingly pink complexion, and she wore shoes and stockings and a dress “The town pump handle ought to be fixed; the way it is broken, folks can hardly use it.” that was freshly ironed, with & dozen ruffles. Her hat had flowers on it., “Let me pump,” he sald; “I want a drink, too.” “All right,” the girl said. “They ought to get a new handle for this pump; a bocy can’t hardly pump it.” Lee Tarcy himself could hardly pump it. The compression was considerable and the broken handle gave scant leverage, but he took both hands to it and presently the water gushed from the spout and the girl filled the tin cup and drank. “That was good,” she said. “Now you,” and she held the cup while he pumped again, and then handed the cup to him. “Thank you,” shs said, and went on her way. Lee put the tin cup on the knob atop of the pump and turned toward the Clarion office. Old Brent, when he entered, was still asleep, his beard flattened on his chest, and Lee reached past him for a pencil and a sheet of copy paper. He wrote out his news item: “The town pump handle ought to be fixed; the way it is broken folks can hardly pump it.” T that moment a farm wagon stopped in front of the Clarion office. The man in the farm wagon was Rance Blarcom, the hardest drinking farmer in Hex- ter County, and the roughest and toughest. He was almost a giant and he grew corn and raised hogs beyond Noble’s Hill. He ralsed Berkshire hogs and had introduced them in Hexter County, and now he was drunk and mad, and he meant business. The editorial praising Poland Chinas he had taken as a slap in his own particular face and as a stab at his hog business, and he had come down to show that he would not stand any such thing. Without bothering to tie his team, Rance Blarcom reached into the wagon bed and took out a shotgun and a sledge hammer. He walked straight—straight enough—to the dcor of the Clarion and jerked it open. “Where’s that double-damned old idiot that wrotc that Poland China lie?” Rance de- manded. He grasped old Brent by the collar, yanked the old man up as if he had been a bag of oats, shook him and ended by beating him un- conscious and dropping him under the ex- change table. Rance glowered at the inert owner of the Clarion a moment and then picked up the sledge. His first blow shattered the drive wheel of the press, causing it to fall in three seg- ments, and Lee Tarcy leaped for the arm that held the sledge, clinging to it. “Don’t! Don't!” he screamed. Rance dropped the sledge long enough to shake the boy off his arm, and as Lee fell the drunken man struck him with the left fist. Then he bunted him with a knee and sent him sliding along the floor, and the boy lay there, doubled up with pain, grasping his belly, moaning. The sledge descended on the decrepit old press again. Twenty blows and the press was anr utter wreck—mere iron junk. One blow crashed the job press into worthlessness. In five minutes the Clarion office was a ruin. By that time old Brent had recovered suffi- ciently to groan, and Lee Tarcy had stopped groaning altogether. He saw Rance advance on the exchange table under which old Brent lay, and he got to his feet and got the shotgun into his hands, and as Rance started to swing the sledge Lee let him have both barrels. The drunken hog-grower pitched forward; those outside the shop who had been drawn by the infernal racket crowded in. By the time Rance Blarcom had been lifted up and old Brent pulled from under the table, Lee was bawling like a baby. “That gun shoots low!” was what he was sobbing. “That gun shoots low!” OWN in the Gorge they use rifles—hair trigger—and this shotgun of Rance Blar- com’s had a stiff trigger'and a hard pull, and Lee’s two shots had caught Rance in the thighs and calves. He was full of birdshot down in those regions, but he was far frcm dead—not one-tenth as dead as the Clarion was. The Hexter County Clarion was, so to speak, totally non est. Old Brent made that known to Lee as soon as he could. The press and shop were ruined, the job press smashed, and old Brent had no money with which to buy anything, hardly food. The only thing Brent could do, aside from going fo the poor farm, was to live with a son over in Mississippi. The next day old Brent kept to his bed, but he had a talk with Lee. Up in the next ccunty there was a paper, and the boy might get cn the paper up there, old Brent said. That was encugh, and Lee started that very day, just as he was, with a parcel of food in a paper and the last copy of the Clarion in his hip pocket. As he went out of the gate of old Brent's place and turned northward Lee saw the girl of the pump. She was in the yard next door. “Are you going away?” she asked. “Yes,” said Lee. “All right; come back some time,” the girl said. “I'm sorry the Clarion got busted up.” By the time Lee was 21 he knew something. Rance demanded. He grasped old Brent by the collar, yanked the old man up as if he had been a bag of oats. He knew weekly newspapers, having worked for a dozen or more in Arkansas, Missouri and Iowa. And he had something—he had money. He also had an ideal, which was to own the best weekly paper that could be turned off & press. So he began working homeward. He re-entered Hexterville By the road by which he had left it, and he tramped in dusty and tired, with a bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and he passed the yard next to old Brent’s. The girl was still there. She was ia a hammock and, as it happened, shelling peas, “Hello!” he said, and the girl looked up. She got out of the hammock and set the pan of peas on the grass and went to the fence, Lee saw she was prettier than ever. “Hello,” she said, smiling at him. back in Hexterville for good?” “For quite a spell, anyway,” he said. the pump?” “Oh,” she laughed, “it's just the same as ever.” ‘““Handle still busted?” “Yes,” she laughed. “Well, I'll see you later, if you don't mind,” said Lee, and he walked on toward the town. A week later, with new type and a new press, he got out the first number of the revived Hexe ter County Clarion. In bold primer on the first page ILee ane nounced the revival of the Clarion, and under the three lines of this was printed the edie torial that had appeared once before: “The Superiority of the Poland China Hog,” but be= side the first item was one of local interest: “The town pump ougbt t~ be fixed; the way it is broken folks can hardly pump it.” Under this was a long°r item. Lee gave this a head, “Dastardly OCutrege.” He gave the article all that was in him. It began: “Nine years ago this paper ceased publication after one of the most cowardly assaults that ever stained the fair name of the State of Arkansas. A drunken bully named Rance Blar- com entered the Clarion office——" “Are you “How’s THE Clarion came out on Friday and on Sate urday about 1 o’clock Ronce Blarcom pulled up his team in front of the hotel across the street. He bad a sholgan in one hand and a sledge hammer in the other, and he started across the street toward the Clarion office. Lee stood in his doorway, a new and glisten= ing double-barreled gun in his two hands, his fingers on the trigrers. Re2once hesitated as the gun reached the boy's choulder, and as Lee laid his cheek against the gun the drunken hog breeder uttered a yell and dropped his sledge and Yan for his weg n. The gun in Lee's hand spoke twice, and Rance Blarcom screamed like a stuck pig and grasped his hips and fell forward in the dust of the street. “Cuss it!” exclaimed Lee, “I always shoot low with these things.” “And I suppose he married the girl,” I said as Collins ended : “Oh, yes!” Collins said. the girl.” “And Rance never bethered him after that?® “As a matter of fact, no,” said Collins, “They picked the shot out of him and he got sober lying on his belly, and as soon as he was able to walk arcund he went over to the Clare ion office and tock a half-page ad for six months to let folks know how good the Berke= shire breed of hors was.” “And did Lee Tarcy ever have to shoot anye body else?” I asked. “Well, not many, anyway,” said Colling, “One or two, maybe. But nobody that amounte ed to much. Folks understood him better. They saw he was the sort of man to run & straight, clean paper, without outside intere ference.” “Yes: he married