"

"It's the biggest issue we ever had. We are printing the poems of all
the poets of Hempfield."

Joe paused to consider a moment, while Nort looked at him earnestly.

"Didn't know they was any poets in Hempfield," observed Joe finally.

"Why," says Nort, "Hempfield has more poets than any town of its size in
America."

Now, Joe took the _Star_ as a matter of course, and advertised in it,
too:

JOSEPH CRANE
LIVERY, FEED AND SALE STABLE

but, rarely expecting to find anything in the paper but the local news,
which he knew already, he had unfortunately used the Poems of Hempfield
for cleaning harness.

After Nort's exciting visit he crossed over and borrowed a somewhat
sticky copy which Nathan Collins, the baker, was saving to wrap bread
in, and glancing over the Poems of Hempfield, discovered that Addison
Bird of Hawleyville had written one of them, a poem entitled "Just Plant
One Tree, Boys," which he had once read at the Grange.

Joe bought hay of Ad, and the idea that Ad was a poet struck Joe as
being an irresistible piece of humour. He told everybody who came in
during the day, and even called Ad on the telephone to joke him about
it. Ad had not heard of it yet, and immediately hitched up and drove
into town, not knowing whether to be pleased or angry. He met Nort at
the gate of the printing-office, and was received by that young editor
with a warm handshake and congratulations upon appearing in what was
undoubtedly the most interesting issue of a newspaper ever published in
Westmoreland County. The upshot of it was that Ad paid up his long
delinquent subscription, and went away with quite a bundle of extra
copies.

It is a strange thing in this world how few people recognize a thing as
wonderful or beautiful until some poet or prophet comes along to tell
them that it is wonderful or beautiful.

"Behold that sunset!" cries the poet, quite beside himself with
excitement, and the world, which has been accustomed to having sunsets
every evening for supper, and thinks nothing of them, suddenly looks up
and discovers unknown splendours.

"Behold the _Star_," cried Nort, rushing wildly about Hempfield. "See
what we've got in the _Star_"--and it spread through the town that
something unusual, wonderful, was happening in the hitherto humdrum
office in the little old building back from the street.

People did not know quite what to make of the publication of the poetry,
it was so unprecedented, and the