With such a varied group of opinions to harmonize as was represented by
his editorial staff, this was not altogether an easy task. Each boy
stressed the thing he was specially interested in and saw no reason for
publishing anything else in the paper. Some thought more room should be
given to athletics; some clamored that the "highbrow stuff" be cut out;
others were for choking off the girls' articles on canning and fancy
work. There were hectic meetings at which the youthful literary pioneers
squabbled, and debated, and almost came to blows.
But Paul Cameron was a boy of unusual tact. He heard each objector in
turn and patiently smoothed away his objections until, upon a
battlefield of argument from which scars of bitterness might have
survived, a harmonious body of workers finally stood shoulder to
shoulder, each with enthusiasm to make the particular part of the work
for which he was responsible finer and more efficient. It was, as Paul
declared to his colleagues, a triumph of teamwork.
It had never, perhaps, come to the minds of the boys that teamwork was a
term that could be applied to work as well as to play. Business and
sport seemed vitally different fields of activity. Yet here they were--a
group of boys pulling together, each at the post assigned him--toiling
for the success of the whole body. Was it such a different thing from
football or baseball after all? Business managers, authors, advertising
agents, were working quite as hard to do their part as ever they had
worked at right or left tackle; as first baseman, or pitcher, or
catcher. The present task simply demanded a different type of energy,
that was all. The same old slogan of each for the whole was applicable.
Consequently every man took up his duties with a pride in his especial
role on the team, and as a result the second issue of the _March Hare_
over-topped the first, and the third the second.
Young people who did not go to the High School at all mailed
subscriptions to the business manager; the alumnae, now scattered in
every direction, began to write for the publication to be sent them; it
was good, they said, to get once more into touch with their Alma Mater.
Older persons who had no children turned in applications for the _March
Hare_. They had seen a copy of the paper and liked it.
Into Paul's editorial sanctum articles from parents who had things to
say and wished to say them gradually found their way. Many of these
persons had done little writing and would not have presumed to send
their attempts to a magazine of a more professional character.
Mr. Lemuel Hardy, for example, submitted a humorous poem on how the
grapes disappeared from his stone wall,--a poem so amusing and so
good-natured yet withal containing such a pitiful little refrain of
disappointment that the seniors at once took it upon themselves to see
that no more of Lemuel's grapes were molested.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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