Words Spoken True by Ann H. Gabhart Page A

now. Most of the old Whigs is going their way, and the Democrats ain’t got nothing to stop them.”
    “Don’t worry, Joe. I’m going to step easy till I know exactly which way I want to go with the Herald . But once I’ve got my facts gathered, I’ll slam them so hard and fast they won’t know what hit them.”
    Joe shook his head. “It may be you not knowing what’s hit you. I’ve heard talk, and some of them Know Nothing fellows is ready to do whatever it takes to make sure their candidates come out on top. You know yourself there’s done been some riots in other cities. It could happen here.”
    “Then we’d better make sure we’re on the right side.”
    “The right side or the one that sells the most papers?” Joe peered at him across the desk.
    “We have to hope they’re one and the same.” Blake pointed at the paper he’d given Joe. “Now if you don’t go on and get that story set up, Mrs. Wigginham won’t see her name in the Herald tomorrow and I won’t ever get invited to any more of her newsworthy events.”
    Joe started to turn away, but then stopped to ask, “You been invited to this wingding tonight?”
    “Not officially, but I’m sure Coleman Jimson wouldn’t mind if I decided to show up. He hasn’t given up on the idea of pulling me and the Herald into his camp yet.”
    “I ain’t seeing that happen, but if you do go, you tell Addie hello for me, boss. Maybe if you make eyes at her, she’ll forget young Stanley.” Joe shot another grin at Blake before he moved back toward the galley table.
    Blake watched him a moment and then let his eyes stray around the shop where the men were getting the press ready for the first run. He loved this part of putting out the paper, when all the words were ready and it was time to start cranking them out.
    He even liked it when he was a boy helping his father put out their weekly back in Castleton, Virginia, and they’d done all the cranking by hand. His father would always grab the first sheet off the press and look at it with a hint of wonder. “By golly, it’s done it again,” he’d say. “Look here, boy. That press has transformed our ordinary old words into news.” Then he would lay the sheet reverently aside to run his hand gently along the frame of the press before they started in cranking out the copies again.
    “A newspaperman can never break trust with his readers, boy,” he’d tell Blake as they worked. “He always has to print what he believes is the truth, no matter what the consequences.” And his father always had, up until the day an angry reader, taking offense to that truth, shot him out on the street.
    Blake still missed him all these years later. Hardly a week went by that he didn’t wish he could ask his father’s advice about the stories he wrote. And there were times when he almost felt his father peeking over his shoulder as some long-forgotten bit of his homespun wisdom would surface in Blake’s mind while he was trying to get down the words of a story.
    He wondered what kind of advice his father would have about Adriane. Blake smiled a little as he could almost hear his father’s words echoing in his mind. “A newspaperman has to gather as much information as he can before he can make the right decision about how to go with a story. If a man’s thoughts are fuzzy, his words are going to be like a pied tray of type.”
    That’s just how Blake’s mind felt right now. Like a tray of type dumped out on the floor and scattered every which way. And Adriane Darcy was the sole cause.
    He’d go to that party tonight. Adriane couldn’t have been as beautiful as he’d thought, and seeing her again would help him put everything in proper perspective. He wouldn’t let his thoughts just stay jumbled like that pied tray of type because of a woman.

     
    That night when Blake arrived at the Jimsons’ house, the street was crowded with carriages and the party was already in full swing. Music and laughter spilled