CHAPTER 3The Tannerville News was housed in a two-story gray brick building that dated back to the middle of the nineteenth century. It had once been the proudest residence in the town—the only residence, in fact, that wasn’t wooden from porch to attic. For more than a century it had been occupied by a single family whose fortunes had neither declined nor advanced. A wealthy family by Kentucky mountain standards, their sale of the building to a budding newspaper had not been brought about by penury.
The family had simply grown tired of living in one dwelling for so long a period of time, and moved elsewhere.
As Manning climbed the narrow flight of creaking stairs that ascended to the city room (the presses were on the ground floor) he found it a little hard to believe that a newspaper in
