'"
"I'll put it in next week," ventured Solon, meekly. "I didn't think of
it at the time."
"Ah, but one should _always think_, should one not?" asked Mrs. Potts,
almost sweetly. "By thinking, for example, you could elevate your sheet
by eliminating certain misapplied colloquialisms. Here I read: 'The rain
last week left the streets in a frightful state. The mud simply won't
jell.'"
Shame mantled the brow of Solon Denney.
"In short," concluded Mrs. Potts, "I regret to say that your paper is
not yet one that I could wish to put into the hands of my little
Roscoe."
Little Roscoe coughed sympathetically and remarked, before he lost his
chance for a word: "The boy of to-day is the man of to-morrow. Parents
cannot be too careful about what their little ones will read during the
long winter evenings that will soon be upon us." He coughed again when
he had finished.
"The press is a mighty lever of civilization," continued the mother,
with an approving glance at her boy, "and you, Mr. Denney, should feel
proud indeed of your sacred mission to instruct and elevate these poor
people. Of course I shall have other duties to occupy my time--"
Solon had glanced up brightly, but gloom again overspread his face as
she continued:--
"Yet I shall make it not the least of my works--if a poor weak woman may
so presume--to help you in correcting certain faults of style and taste
in your sheet, for it goes each week into many homes where the light
must be sorely needed, and surely you and I would not be adequately
sensible of our responsibilities if we continued to let it go as it is.
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