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Show f (TOW WITH homer. A Cured? jCROY 7 VWkII HVlP w.n.u. service WVF THE STORY THUS FAR: Amos Croy tn( bis wife, when first married settled on a farm In Missouri, where Homer was bor. Every Sunday meant church, company com-pany for dinner, and steer weighing. The Croyc attended the Omaha Exposition, wher Homer saw his first horseless carrlge, motion picture and "hula" dancer. 'Rcnzo purchased a farm nearby and became a welcome addition to the community. Homer was the first Croy to attend hish school. At first shy, before be-fore he graduated he felt at home. He then went to college and signed up as the first student in the first journalism class In AmcricH. He edited the Post-Dispatch for one dy. Arriving in New York, he visits an tditor. CHAPTER XVII I go) ip respectfully. "Sit down," he said, and we sat on the creaking seat. He looked at me, puzzled. "We've bought some things from you, haven't we?" "A few," I said as if the thing was hardly worth mentioning. "Let's see, you're from Kansas, or Missouri, aren't you?" "Yes, sir, from Missouri." "You didn't have any trouble about getting your last check, did you?" "No, sir." t He looked relieved. "Well, sometimes some-times . . . you know how things are." I nodded to show him I was an old hand at such things. He looked at me. evidently making mak-ing up his mind about something. "You're quite a ways from home, aren't you?" "It's the first time I was ever in New York. It's quite a little burg!" I said and gave a laugh to show how quaint the place was. "While I was here I thought I would drop in on you." "I'm glad you did. Didn't you write a piece about the new names that the government is making the Indians adopt?" I moved uneasily. "You sent it back." Then he moved uneasily. "Well, I knew I'd seen it Maybe next time you'll have better luck." We both laughed a little. "How long are you going to be in town?" "I haven't quite decided." All the time I was becoming more and more self-conscious, and couldn't think of anything to say . . . when for so long I had looked forward for-ward to this very moment. We talked about this and that, but all the time I was growing more and more ill at ease. The conversation died away; we worked hard and revived re-vived it. With so little to say, I could look at him more closely and bs I looked I saw something that shocked me a grease spot on his necktie! A great editor with a grease spot! Even if it was a small one. Suddenly, almost with a blinding revelation, I realized that he was human, hu-man, had the same frailties and shortcomings that other people had, and I relaxed and became more natural. The artificial barrier melted melt-ed away and we talked in a natural manner. Really visited. It was not long before words were flying and we were laughing, when, at first, my mouth had been full of cotton. He followed me to the elevator, both of us at ease. He became a fine friend, of mine and, later, became be-came magazine editor and still later, lat-er, drama editor of the New York Herald-Tribune. I thought I could get a job on the New York World, after having been on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, but It didn't work out that way. I went from one newspaper to another, but got nowhere. After telling my experience, ex-perience, I would add, "By the way, I am the first student in the first Bchool of journalism in the world." That usually ended matters, for I did not realize how bitter the feeling by old-time newspapermen was against a school of journalism. I might as well have said, "By the way, I am a dope addict." They could have got rid of me but little faster. I tried every paper In New York and Brooklyn; even answered an ad and went to New Brunswick, New Jersey. The situation wasn't desperate, tor I was selling a few things. "Potboilers" "Pot-boilers" they would be called today, but I thought they were good. At least, I wroe them with all the skill I could summon. My weekly letter came from Pa. "Dear Son," it always began and ended, "Very truly, Your Father." To anyone else the news would be inconsequential; in-consequential; to me it was Important Impor-tant and vital. The cutworms were at it again. There seemed to be tome indication of black rust Chicken Chick-en thieves had been in the neighborhood. neighbor-hood. I think one of the deep feelings of anyone coming to New York Is to want the home folks to believe he is doing well. I was lonesome, so I developed many correspondents, and to each I painted as glowing a picture of myself as I could. I Aid not say, outright, I was prosperous; pros-perous; but, on the other hand, I lidn't tell them I wasn't. Then I ait on something very nice, indeed. I became acquainted with a clerk t the Hotel Astor and arranged to ! ceivt my mail there; so I got some of their crested stationery, and had a fine flourishing correspondence. correspond-ence. I'm sure no one ever guessed I was living in a second-class rooming room-ing house on Lexington Avenue, at Twenty-eighth Street. My seeming prosperity was too good to last, for my hotel friend left, and when I tried to continue my arrangement I was sternly rebuked. But I had a way around that. I still had their stationery and at the bottom of their impressive letterhead letter-head I would add: "Temporary address, ad-dress, so-and-so Lexington Avenue, New York." Meanwhile I had gathered gath-ered up some other hotel stationery, and one day, by chance, I mixed my swanky envelope and letterhead. It was not long before I had a letter from my friend wanting to know at exactly which hotel I was living, then explained I had the stationery of two hotels. I was chagrined at being caught in my deception, but as I read on I found he was treating it lightly, in fact humorously. So I wrote to another friend, this time purposely mixing my ingredients, and got a mystified reply from him. I began to see the humorous possibilities possi-bilities of what I had stumbled into. It was not long before I improved on hotel stationery, which anyone could pick up, by getting stationery from Jilted - w a r That was the way an editor should look. any place I could. In fact, no sheet of bizarre stationery was safe. If I could purloin a letterhead from the Eden Musee and put it in a Fiss, Doerr & Carroll Horse Auction envelope, en-velope, I was delighted. The way people rose to this foolery was most stimulating and kept me from being quite so lonesome. My impersonal Missouri friend did give me one tip. He said that Theodore Theo-dore Dreiser, who was editor of three Butterick women's magazines, maga-zines, was looking for a cub. Theodore Theo-dore Dreiser! Author of "Sister Carrie." Car-rie." In Philadelphia there were two great names Lorimer and Bok. In New York Dreiser. I seemed hardly to breathe when I was shown into his presence, but I might as well have, for he seemed hardly to notice me. He was tall, but not so tall as I, and balanced on his nose was a pair of eyeglasses with a cord running down the side. That was the way an editor should look. But there seemed to be no stovepipe hat. Then I said something about Missouri. Mis-souri. I must have already mentioned men-tioned it several times, sbut seemingly seem-ingly he had not heard, for suddenly he paused in his paper shuffling and said. "You say you are from Missouri?" Mis-souri?" "Yes, sir." "Where is Washington, Missouri?" It came with such utter unexpectedness unexpect-edness that I had to think a mo- , ment before I could answer. "It's in Franklin County, not far from St. Louis. That's where they make corncob pipes." He looked at me with real interest, then asked a few questions about my experience which, evidently, he had paid no attention to. Then said, "I've asked a hundred people that question, but not one has known. I think I'll hire you. That's where my wife is from." I was tremendously pleased. A New York magazine! And under Theodore Dreiser. I was terribly afraid of Dreiser, but still I liked him, for he was a curious combination combina-tion of sternness and gentleness. I can still see that flashing eye and that low-hanging underlip; and I can still hear his sympathetic voice if someone was in trouble. I had been there only a few days before I was given my first real task. The magazine had had a contest con-test entitled "My Pet Animal True Story," and ten thousand letters had come In. They were stacked in boxes and piled on desks and tables. None of the regular stafT wanted to read thrm. but when I was given the Job, I was delighted. Here was a peek at things other people had written. writ-ten. At first I read each one carefully care-fully and meticulously, making marks on it to refresh my memory. Then I saw that the anecdotes fell into classifications stories about dogs, cats, ponies, spiders, and so on. Pretty soon I learned how to read quickly. I would glance at the beginning and if I saw that it was a story about a canary, I would jump to the end to find the climax. If the story wasn't as good as the canary ca-nary story I already had, then into the "rejects" it'd go. At last, I had read them all, and the ones I had selected went to the "honorary judges." The judges agreed that a 'story about a pet crane was the best, but there were also twenty small prizes. Then I had my first glimpse into the way prize contests are decided. There was not much difference between the stories, so it was agreed to spread the prizes around geographically. And that was exactly what was done. One prize went to Maine, the next to New Mexico, and so on. And I've seen that work out many times since the "geographical angle." One day I got to see the wheels actually go around. Preiser called me the cub into his office and, peering over the top of the glasses dangling on his nose, said: "Get the staff together. Bring them Into my office." A staff conference was held once a week, in this big room, but this was not the day for it; never be-fore be-fore had he called for a conference to be held in his private office. It was not long before we were filing in. But Dreiser kept on working, work-ing, never looking up, for he was a bit of a showman. Finally he turned around, took off his glasses and quickly popped them back on again, which was a little mannerism of his. "I started to edit this story," he said, holding up a manuscript, "and I found this In it. I'll read it." 1 A hush fell over us, for we knew a crisis had come. He began to read aloud. The sum and substance of it was this: the magazine had bought the short story from a then-famous author, and in the story the woman character had smoked a cigarette. At the end of the passage he paused. "How did that get by?" he demanded. There was a good deal of uneasy shifting. No one knew exactly. It was just one of those things. "We can change It," someone suggested. sug-gested. "If that could be done I would not have called you in," he said. "The whole story depends on the woman smoking. If the cigarette is edited out, there is no story." They discussed it In detail, and that point was true. All kinds of wicked substitutes were suggested, but none would do. She amoked, or she didn't There was no halfway. Someone suggested sending it back to the author and letting her solve the problem. But she was In Europe and the story had been scheduled. Finally Dreiser said, "The point is far bigger than this matter of a cigarette. All the women'i magazines maga-zines are too 'nice' ; they, don't meet life squarely. If we want really to touch the lives of our readers, we've got to get down to vitals and stop being prissy. The woman In this story is going to smoke." There was a moment's hush, for all recognized the seriousness of the situation. It might lose the magazine maga-zine a great deal in the way of circulation. cir-culation. Certainly a hundred ministers min-isters would thunder. At last the conference was over. But the trouble wasn't, for the business busi-ness office soon saw a copy of the story and now there was a conference confer-ence indeed! This time Dreiser had to go to their office. He had enemies in the business end, and they made an issue of this. But Dreiser was a fighter and, by sheer force of personality, per-sonality, won out. Of course the magazine failed, but this was many years later. I don't think the cigarette ciga-rette killed it. I want to return to the feel of corn growing at night. "Growing weather" we call it. It will grow one-third as much during the night as it will during the day, we say. And it would seem to be true. For when you come out in the morning, it does look bigger; and when you cultivate, it strikes you higher on the thigh. Corn, at night, has a peculiar pe-culiar way of whispering to itself, as if it knew secrets far beyond what its masters know. And, if you wander wan-der near a cornfield at night, you can't doubt it. Now and then a night bird flies over, with a rush of wings almost in your ears; now and then a polecat pads by; horses look up from their cropping, then go on about their business. Suddenly the windmill changes gears and makes so much noise that it startles you. The steers are chewing their fourth stomach. One of the steers gets up and goes over to the water tank, the cracking of its pasterns sounding startlingly loud 'TO i. UED) |