The Great Brain #2: More Adventures of the Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald

Author:John D. Fitzgerald [Fitzgerald, John D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Humorous Stories, Juvenile Fiction, Adventure
ISBN: 9780425289983
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1969-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

Tom Scoops Papa’s Newspaper

EVERY TUESDAY IT WAS TOM’S and my job to deliver the weekly edition of Papa’s newspaper. The second Tuesday after we’d returned from our fishing and camping trip, we entered the Advocate office after doing our morning chores at home. Papa usually wrote his editorial and set the type for it and for the advertisements during the first five days of the week, in addition to any extra printing jobs he had. He also set the type for news items from other Utah newspapers which he thought might interest his readers, and national news items received by telegraph, and the mail edition of the New York World. He waited until Saturday to set the type for the local news items he had collected during the week. The four-page weekly newspaper was printed on Monday and delivered to subscribers on Tuesday morning.

Sweyn really thought he was something, helping Papa at the Advocate, wearing long pants, a printer’s apron, and a green eye shade. The way he lorded it over Tom and me!

“It’s about time you got here, Old Man,” he said to Tom as we entered the Advocate office with its smell of ink and paper.

“Sorry we are late, Grandpa,” Tom said, “But Mamma made us weed the vegetable garden this morning.”

Sweyn’s eyes popped open. “What is this Grandpa business?” he asked.

“If I’m an old man,” Tom said, “you must be my grandfather.”

Boy, how I wished I could have thought of that snappy comeback, which positively stunned my oldest brother for a moment. Then he got a sly look on his face as he pointed at the two neatly piled stacks of the weekly on the counter.

“Papa went to the barbershop for a haircut,” he said, “but he told me to make sure you little grade-school kids did a good job.”

From the look on Tom’s face I could tell he would rather be called Old Man than a little grade-school kid. But he didn’t say anything as he grabbed his pile of the weekly and me the other pile. We carried them outside and Tom put his copies in the basket on his bike. It was his job to deliver the Advocate to the homes of all subscribers in Adenville because he had a bicycle. It was my job to drop off all copies of the newspaper that had yellow name stickers on them at the post office. These were mailed. I left the rest of my copies on the counter of the Z.C.M.I. store and on the desk at the Sheepmen’s Hotel for people to buy for cash.

I don’t know if Sweyn calling Tom and me little grade-school kids started it but after supper that night Tom got what Papa called growing pains. Mamma and Aunt Bertha were doing the supper dishes. Sweyn, the big sissy, had left to go sit on the Vinson’s front porch and hold hands with his girl, Marie. Papa was reading The Farm Journal. Tom was pacing back and forth in the parlor with his hands behind his back.

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