THE MINER
Tell them I have corresponded with the New Orleans Crescent and other papers—and the Enterprise.
If they want letters from here—who'll run from morning till night collecting material cheaper? I'll write a short letter twice a week, for the present, for the Age, for $5 per week. Now it has been a long time since I couldn't make my own living, and it shall be a long time before I loaf another year.
This all led to nothing, but about the same time the Enterprise assistant already mentioned spoke to Joseph T. Goodman, owner and editor of the paper, about adding "Josh" to their regular staff. "Joe" Goodman, a man of keen humor and literary perception, agreed that the author of the "Josh" letters might be useful to them. One of the sketches particularly appealed to him—a burlesque report of a Fourth of July oration.
"That is the kind of thing we want," he said. "Write to him, Barstow, and ask him if he wants to come up here."
Barstow wrote, offering twenty-five dollars a week—a tempting sum. This was at the end of July, 1862.
Yet the hard-pressed miner made no haste to accept the offer. To leave Aurora meant the surrender of all hope in the mines, the confession of another failure. He wrote Barstow, asking when he thought he might be needed. And at the same time, in a letter to Orion, he said:
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