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Show FICT1 ON I REWRITE MAN f Vi Hv HILDA IMIII.PS HAMMOND Jj jj - . MARTY HENDRICKS tapped his pencil on the desk and glanced nervously at the wall clock. Only twenty minutes more before the dead line for the afternoon Star and not a story worth a rap had come in over the telcphonel Not that Marty Hendricks usually worried about wht kind of story came in ever the wire. He had always had magic In his fingers magic that let him take the dryest bit of news from police stations or fire houses and re-write it into a regular Arabian Nights tale. But today things had been different. dif-ferent. Today Marty Hendricks had overheard a conversation between the city editor and the Chief and his whole world had crumbled. "Say," the Chief had said as Marty paused a moment outside his half - open door I to sharpen a m . pencil, "What's lnls wrong with Week's Marty? He used to be the best Best re-write man in , the whole Fiction South. Could take a story over the wire and turn it into a piece that made a sob sister out of every woman. But he's gone to pieces hasn't written a Hood storv for rnunt'm " wheels of the bicycle were as crumbled crum-bled and twisted as the body of the small boy. The police haven't reported re-ported yet who was to blame for the accident but WE know. It was the fault of all of us the fault of modern civilization which allows cars and trucks and little lads on bicycles to ride together on the same streets. He might have been your kid and he might have been mine. What are we going to do about it?" Marty stopped a moment and reread re-read the last line. It was a funny line to end a story with, he thought a wrong line, perhaps. The Chief might not like it. He started to change it, but he couldn't. First of all, because he couldn't think of anything else to say and then, too, because he was in a great hurry all at once. He snatched the paper from the typewriter and fairly ran to the city editor's desk. The city editor's eyes traveled over the page. "Pretty good," he announced when he had finished reading it. "A little too much editorial edi-torial flavor to it, but you've perked up Marty . . . why, where's he gone?" For Marty Hendricks HAD gone. He had made the elevator in nothing noth-ing flat and he was already shooting down in the lift. He wasn't wonder- He remembered there was a bicycle bi-cycle and a boy at his house, too. He picked up the receiver and cleared his throat. "Hello," he said. "Yes ... An accident at St. Charles Avenue and Adams? . . . Yes, I've got it. What's that? Boy ten years old ... no hope ... a bicycle bi-cycle and a car . . . yes . . . whose boy? Don't know yet? ... I see . ." ing how the city editor liked the story and he wasn't caring whether wheth-er the Chief liked it or not. He was remembering that there was a second-hand bicycle at his house a bicycle bi-cycle that was painted red and had silvery handle 1 bars. 'Of course, there were thousands of bicycles like that in New Orleans," he told himself as the elevator stopped and let him out. But he had to be SURE . . . Sure that he and Sarah Ann still had time to take that bicycle out of circulation! Jobs weren't important, Marty Hendricks thought as he ran along the street and hailed a passing street car. Not a bit important compared com-pared to a boy with blue eyes and rosy cheeks and a turned up nose He could get another job but he couldn't get another kid like Andy Not anywhere in the whole world! And six kids weren't too many! "No, Sir," said Marty Hendnicks to himself as he swung on to the car step. "Six kids are JUST EX ACTLY RIGHT!" "I've noticed that myself," the city editor answered as Marty's heart thumped. "Guess he's gone stale. Twenty-five years at a rewrite re-write desk will do that to a man." "Well, he'll have to spruce up or give up the job," the Chief growled. "There's a young man asking for that job arid they say he's a dandy. If Marty doesn't perk up we'd better bet-ter put him back on some light work and get that young fellow." The conversation had trailed on, but Marty had not listened to any more of It. His hands were trembling trem-bling as he found his way back to his desk and there was a lump in his throat that he couldn't swallow no matter how hard he tried. He, Marty Hendricks, the best re-write man that the Star had ever had, about to be ditched. He sat down at his desk and tried to think what it would mean to Sarah Ann if he lost this job. Sarah Ann was a good wife a mighty good one. She could make a dollar go further than any other wife he knew, but even Sarah Ann had a hard time getting all the things the kids needed out of his salary. And If that was cut, no telling how they'd be able to manage. Six kids they ate up a lot, six kids did! And now that Marty Junior was heading for college they had to put a little aside every month. Yes six kids were an awful lot TOO MANY," he thought as he glanced down at the snapshot pressed under the glass top of his desk. There they were Sarah Ann and the six of them. He turned his eyes away from the snapshot and glanced at the wall clock. If a story would only come-Just come-Just one story that would let him show the Chief what he could do! All there was the telephone now! He put down the receiver and pulled his typewriter towards him. His fingers reached for the keys . . . Ten minutes to the dead line now . . . he'd have to hurry. He'd have to make it a good story . . . this might be the last story he'd ever re-write if he didn't make it good! HIS eyes strayed again to the snapshot beneath the glass. Ten years old . . . why, that was just the age of little Andy! Perhaps the boy looked like Andy . . . perhaps per-haps he had blue eyes and red cheeks and a nose that turned up. His fingers began to play upon the keys of the typewriter lightly as though someone else were writing. Funny, he thought, that the words should slip off the keys so fast now ... he didn't even have to think. The story was writing itself . . . writing itself this way: "He might have been mine. That's what every man and woman in New Orleans should think when they read about the ten-year-old boy who will never ride a bicycle again. It happened at St. Charles Avenue and Adams Street in the City of New Orleans, but it happens every day in every city of America. It was only a second-hand bike but the boy must have thought it as handsome as any bicycle that ever came out of a department store. His father probably didn't want him to have it and his mother probably didn't want him to have it either. But mothers and fathers have soft hearts and so this mother and father fa-ther couldn't bear to say 'no' to him, although their heads must have told them that they were fools to send a child of ten into that line of traffic. "The bicycle was painted red and the handlebars were still silvery when they found the pieces. But the |