Rachel Hutton, the head girl of the High School, was voted general editress, and appointed to write the leader and the various reports, while each sub-editress was responsible for the portion allotted to her school. The work did not sound very formidable, but when Laura Kirby, as editress for St. Cyprian's, began to get her material together she realized some of the thorns which beset the journalistic path. Fifteen pages of print seemed a small allowance, and very limiting to the powers of her contributors. She could almost have filled it on her own account. She wished all the best talent of the school to be represented, and tried to map out her space accordingly. It was most difficult, however, to keep her literary stars within due bounds. Nora Farrar, the generally acknowledged poet laureate of the College, had been put down for a short poem of twelve lines, calculated exactly to fill half a page; but when she handed in her manuscript the dismayed editress found that it contained no less than seven verses.
"You'll have to cut some of it out," she suggested.
"Cut it short! Impossible! Why, it would spoil it entirely," protested the poetess indignantly. "Can't some of the others shorten their things instead?"
"No, indeed! They'd prefer to lengthen them."
"Well, look here, it will ruin my piece utterly if I have to chop out the middle half of it."
"I'm very sorry, but it's got to be done, unless you'd rather write another poem."
Laura found that every contributor committed the same mistake, and each manuscript was apt to overflow its due number of words. The distracted editress had to be very stern in marking out passages which she considered were not strictly necessary, and insisting upon their omission. It was so hard to persuade the budding authoresses that this matter of space was one of real importance, and that they must not exceed their allowance even by a single paragraph. Many were the grumbles and protests, and as Laura was unfortunately not blessed with too large a share of tact, the making of the magazine proved a rather stormy business. The illustrations were another source of difficulty. Freda Kingston brought a very pretty pen-and-ink sketch, over which she had spent much time and trouble. She had drawn it the exact size it was to appear in the magazine, and was highly annoyed when she was informed that all drawings meant for reproduction must be on a scale half as large again as they would eventually be printed, as they were minimized in the process of making the blocks.
"I shall actually have to do it over again! Why didn't you tell me before, and save me all this trouble?" she asked plaintively.
"I didn't know myself," groaned Laura. "I've only just found out how illustrations are printed. By the by, you'll have to make all your lines thicker, too, because those will be thinned down when it's diminished."
"I hope they won't spoil my sketch at the printing works, I want to keep it afterwards."