He was a curious combination of hardheadedness, of ironical wisdom, and of humour, and somewhere, hidden deep within, of molten sentiment. He was a regular Yankee. One night he got more than ordinarily tired, and just stopped. They found him in bed the next morning, his legs drawn up under the coverlet, a volume of Don Quixote open on his knees, his empty pipe fallen from his lips, the lamp dying out on a table near him. At his elbow were two of the inevitable yellow slips: Squire Baker of Arnoville was a visitor at Lawyer Perkins's on Monday. Apples stopped yesterday at Banks's store at 30 cents a peck--on their way up (adv). He never knew what a hero he was: he had made a living for thirty years out of a country newspaper. Anthy came home from college to the forlorn and empty and ugly house--and it seemed to her that the end of the world had come. This period of loneliness made a deep impression upon her later years. When at last she could bear to open the envelope labelled: "To Anthy--in case of my death," she found this letter: DEAR ANTHY: I am leaving the _Star_ to you. There is nothing else except the homestead--and the debts. Do what you like with all of them--but look after your Uncle Newt. Now, Anthy's earliest memories were bound up with the printing-office. There was never a time that she did not know the smell of printer's ink. As a child she had delighted to tip over the big basket and play with the paper ribbons from the cutting machine. Later, she had helped on press days to fold and label the papers. She was early a pastmaster in the art of making paste, and she knew better than any one else the temperamental eccentricities of the old-fashioned Dick labeller. She could set type (passably) and run the hand press. But as for taking upon herself the activities of her tireless father--who was at once editor, publisher, compositor, pressman, advertising solicitor, and father confessor for the community of Hempfield--she could not do it. There is only a genius here and there who can fill the high and difficult position of country editor. The responsibility, therefore, fell upon the Captain, who for so many years had been the titular and ornamental editor of the _Star_. It was the Captain who wrote the editorials, the obituaries, and the "write-ups," who attended the political conventions, and was always much in demand for speeches at the Fourth of July celebrations.