The High School Pitcher | Page 8

a dollar a column for anything you write for us that possesses local interest enough to warrant our printing it. Now, while going to the High School, why can't you turn reporter in your spare time, and earn a little pocket money?"
Again Dick gasped. He had never thought of himself as a budding young journalist. Yet, as Mr. Pollock inquired, "Why not?" Why not, indeed!
"Well, how do you think you'd like to work for us?" asked Mr. Pollock, after a pause. "Of course you would not leave the High School. You would not even neglect your studies in the least. But a young man who knows almost everybody in Gridley, and who goes about town as much as you do, ought to be able to pick up quite a lot of newsy stuff."
"I wonder if I could make a reporter out of myself," Dick pondered.
"The way to answer that question is to try," replied Mr. Pollock. "For myself, I think that, with some training, you'd make a good reporter. By the way, Prescott, have you planned on what you mean to be when you're through school?"
"Why, it isn't settled yet," Dick replied slowly. "Father and mother hope to be able to send me further than the High School, and so they've suggested that I wait until I'm fairly well through before I decide on what I want to be. Then, if it's anything that a college course would help me to, they'll try to provide it."
"What would you like most of all in the world to be?" inquired the editor of "The Blade."
"A soldier!" replied young Prescott, with great promptness and emphasis.
"Hm! The soldier's trade is rather dull these days," replied the editor. "We're becoming a peaceful people, and the arbitrator's word does the work that the sword used to do."
"This country has been in several wars," argued Dick, "and will be in others yet to come. In times of peace a soldier's duty is to fit himself for the war time that is to come. Oh, I believe there's plenty, always, that an American soldier ought to be doing."
"Perhaps. But newspaper work is the next best thing to soldiering, anyway. Prescott, my boy, the reporter of to-day is the descendant of the old free-lance soldier of fortune. It takes a lot of nerve to be a reporter, sometimes, and to do one's work just as it should be done. The reporter's life is almost as full of adventure as the soldier's. And there are no 'peace times' for the reporter. He never knows when his style of 'war' will break out. But I must get back to my work. Are you going to try to bring us in good matter at a dollar a column?"
"Yes, I am, thank you," Dick replied, unhesitatingly, now.
"Good," nodded Mr. Pollock, opening one of the smaller drawers over his desk. "Here's something you can put on and wear."
He held out to the boy an oblong little piece of metal, gold plated.
"It's a badge such as 'The Blade' reporters wear, and has the paper's name on it," continued the editor. "You can pin it on your vest."
"I guess I'd better leave that part out for a while," laughed Dick, drawing back. "The fellows at school wouldn't do a thing to me if they caught me wearing a reporter's badge."
"Oh, just as you please about that," nodded Mr. Pollock, tossing the badge back into the drawer. "But don't forget to bring us in something good, Prescott."
"I won't forget, Mr. Pollock."
As Dick went down the street, whistling blithely, he kept his hand in his pocket on the half-dollar. He had had much more money with him a little while before, but that was to pay to some one else. This half-dollar was wholly his own money, and, with the prospect it carried of earning more, the High School boy was delighted. Pocket money had never been plentiful with young Prescott. The new opportunity filled him with jubilation.
It was not long, however, before a new thought struck him. He went straight to his parents' bookstore, where he found his mother alone, Mr. Prescott being out on business.
To his mother Dick quickly related his new good fortune. Mrs. Prescott's face and words both expressed her pleasure.
"At first, mother, I didn't think of anything but pocket money," Dick admitted. "Then my head got to work a bit. It has struck me that if I can make a little money each week by writing for 'The Blade,' I can pay you at least a bit of the money that you and Dad have to spend to keep me going."
"I am glad you thought of that," replied Mrs. Prescott, patting her boy's hand. "But we shan't look to you to do anything of the sort. Your father and I are not rich,