National Affairs: The Publisher

Folks in Worthington, Mass. (pop. 515) are as tradition-prim and Yankee-proper as any other New Englanders, and they usually have a cold and suspicious eye for strangers. But right from the start they accepted George Humphrey, a nice fellow who last year bought a big, 15-room colonial house on 130 acres, and moved in with his wife and children.

Jean Humphrey, 34, a slender, lively woman who once danced with the corps de ballet at Manhattan’s famed Radio City Music Hall, opened up dancing classes at Worthington’s Town Hall. George, 39, was a publisher, ran a little printing firm that turned out school yearbooks and similar publications. He liked to drive around in a $10,000 Continental Mark II, and was known to be a mite expansive about his moneymaking prowess; he also gave the impression that he was related to former U.S. Treasury Secretary George Humphrey. He had a little printing press in his basement, and a friendly real-estate man who saw it once joshed: “You could make a bundle of ten-dollar bills on that machine.” “Yes,” laughed George, “that’s right,” and he hustled his visitor into another room.

Fortnight ago U.S. Treasury agents arrested George and two other men in Boston, then sped to Worthington to confiscate a complete counterfeiting setup in Humphrey’s cellar, including $5,500 in inexpertly printed $10 and $20 bills, as well as negatives and plates for making Canadian currency and American Telephone and Telegraph Co. stock certificates.

Worthington was shocked. Of late, everybody knew, the Humphreys had been terribly short of money: their phone had been disconnected and bills had been piling up in the house for months. Ingenuously, George had been carrying on, assuring his creditors that he would soon make good his debts; George’s word was good enough.

With George in jail, the Humphreys lost their mortgaged house and most of their chatteled belongings. But the townsfolk, though they do not make friends casually, rallied to the friends they had made. Neighbors called on Jean, offered shelter for her and her four children, furniture, food. “This,” explained one woman, “is not charity. It’s just a little help for some neighbors who need it. They were such wonderful people and helped the community in so many ways.” Said Jean Humphrey (who plans to continue her dancing classes): “I want to stay here in Worthington. All of a sudden, I have discovered the best friends I have ever known. It’s where everything is out in the open, where everybody knows . . . We’ll start all over again.”