There were few prouder boys in the big city of New York than Larry when, at the end of his first week, he carried home his wages. The five dollars seemed a small gold mine to him, and he handed the cash to his mother with the remark that some day it would be more.  
“You’re doing very well,” said Mrs. Dexter. “I shall not worry now.”
 
“I’m goin’ to work to-morrow,” spoke James. “I can sell papers. I seen littler boys than me sellin’ ’em.”
 
“I guess we will not have to start you in right away,” spoke Larry. “There’s time enough.”
 
“Couldn’t you get me some work to do?” asked Lucy with a smile, as she sat propped up in the big chair. “I could direct envelopes or something.”
 
“You just get well and strong and maybe we’ll talk about work,” said Larry, for he could not bear to think of his sister suffering.
 
“I’m afraid I’ll never be any better,” said the girl a little sadly.
 
“Yes, you will!” exclaimed Larry, turning71 away to hide the tears in his eyes. “I read in our paper to-day of a big doctor that’s coming from Europe to cure people that have the same kind of spinal disease you have.”
 
“But it costs an awful lot of money,” sighed Lucy.
 
“I’ll earn it!” said Larry determinedly.
 
During those days came a letter for Mrs. Dexter which had been sent to Campton from New York and then returned to the metropolis. The communication was from her sister and told about Mrs. Ralston’s bereavement and stated that the widow had decided to pay an extended visit to some of her husband’s folks who lived in another state.
 
“I hope she finds a good home,” said Larry’s mother, and that evening penned a letter to Mrs. Ralston, telling of the changes that had occurred in the Dexter household.
 
Larry began his second week of work with better spirits than he had the first. He began to feel confidence in himself. Another boy had been hired to take Peter’s place and Larry lost some of the feeling of being the “cub” copy boy, as the newest arrival on a paper is called.
 
He was rapidly learning many things that were destined to be useful to him. He could go after proofs now and make no errors, for he had come to distinguish the different kinds of type in which the headings of the stories were printed. There72 were the big “horse heads,” with three lines of very black type. Then there were the ordinary “display heads,” of two lines, of not quite such heavy letters. Then came “lap” heads, smaller still, “twelve points,” or type about half an inch high, and so on down to the small single-line heads, that were put on only the least important articles.
 
Larry began to have some idea of the necessity of being quick and accurate. He saw that, even near last-edition time, when everything was on the rush, the reporters and editors kept cool, and, though they had to work fast, they made every motion count.
 
The boy came to admire the coolness of the veteran reporter who could write a story with a boy standing at his elbow grabbing each page of copy as it was finished and rushing it to the editor, and thence upstairs.
 
“I’m going to be a reporter,” Larry decided one day, when he had been on the paper three weeks. “I’m going to study and fix myself for a place on the Leader.”
 
He began to see the importance that a really good and conscientious reporter holds in a community. He heard the newspaper men telling of the well-known public men they interviewed, the events of the day they took part in, and all this fired his ambition to be one of the Leader’s reporters.
 
73 He spoke to his mother about it that evening and said he was going to attend night school.
 
“There’s a teacher in one of those schools who lives on the floor above,” said Mrs. Dexter. “I heard his wife talking to Mrs. Jackson the other day, and she mentioned it. His name is Professor Carlton.”
 
“I’m going up and ask him about it,” decided Larry, who, of late, had been getting in the habit of doing things quickly, as they did in the newspaper office.
 
Professor Carlton was at home, and Larry, after introducing himself, stated the object of his call.
 
“What do you want to study for?” asked the teacher.
 
“To be a reporter,” replied Larry.
 
“I’m afraid it will take more than study to make you that,” said Mr. Carlton. “You have to have a ‘nose for news’ I’m told.”
 
“I know,” said Larry, nodding gravely, “that’s what Mr. Emberg, the city editor, says.”
 
“Then you’re on a paper now?” asked Mr. Carlton.
 
“Only a copy boy,” replied Larry.
 
“Many a copy boy has risen to be a reporter, though,” was the teacher’s answer. “I hope you will. But about the evening schools. You see this is summer, and the schools do not start until September. That’s two months off.”
 
74 “I don’t want to wait as long as that,” said Larry. “I want to be earning more money as soon as I can.”
 
“Perhaps I can help you,” said the instructor, who had taken an interest in the lad. “I have little to do nights, and we might make a class of one, with you for the pupil and me for the teacher, say three evenings a week. You would learn more rapidly then, and be ready when the evening schools opened in the fall.”
 
“I’m afraid I couldn’t pay for the lessons,” said Larry.
 
“Never mind about the pay,” said the professor. “I’ll be only too glad to help a boy that wants to help himself.”
 
So it was arranged. Larry had a good common school education, but there were many things he was ignorant ............