Just as she had with the Day Nursery story, she made the youngster who was to wear the sun suit, and receive its benefits, very real and fascinating. No one could resist the story’s appeal. Every mother who read it would say, “That’s just the thing for Billy and Betty,” and would go right down to the store. She had the facts, too, and even quoted the New York lecturer and Mr. Dugan.
She looked up every word she was the least doubtful about in the worn, coverless dictionary. She remembered that Miss Betty counted four triple-spaced typed pages to a column. Recalling Miss Betty’s recent write-up of a toggery shop, she planned to make this the same length, about a third of a column, and figured that would be a little more than a page of typewriting.
At last the story satisfied her and she retyped it. She had made too many changes in the original to hand that draft in, although she knew that was the way real reporters did. What name should she put in the upper left-hand corner? If she put simply Martin, every one would think Tim had written it, and he would be blamed if there were any mistakes in it. “Joan” would be too informal, so she decided on J. MARTIN, and typed it in capitals, the way Tim did.
She left a space for the “head.” The Journal headlines were written right on the copy. What kind would it have—a No. 1 italic, or a two-column boldface? Joan had often tried to learn headline writing but discovered that finding words to fit the spaces was harder than cross-word puzzles.
She knew that a news story should, if possible, answer the questions: Who? What? Where? When? and How? in the first sentence, and she had devised such a “lead.” She remembered that Cookie once told them about a young reporter, who, in writing about a young man who had been drowned, started his story by telling how the youth had left home that morning, and gone on a picnic with his chums, how they had enjoyed lunch, and then hired a boat to go rowing. Not until the last paragraph did the reader learn that the young man had been drowned. That was the wrong way to write news stories, Cookie explained.
Was her story good enough? For a moment, she was tempted not to hand it in, after all. Still, Mr. Dugan would look for it in the Journal.
She placed it timidly upon Mr. Nixon’s desk. He was talking over the telephone, listening with one cheek held against the mouthpiece to shut out the office noises. He nodded at her and began to read copy on the story while he listened to the telephone conversation, answering with monosyllables. It might be a tip for a big news story he was getting, or it might be Mrs. Editor on the other end of the wire, telling him about the baby. Once Chub had told Joan that Mrs. Editor had telephoned that the baby had a tooth—her first. The connection had been poor and for a few moments the office was thrown into consternation, because the editor had understood her to say, “Ruthie has the croup.” Perhaps, though, Chub had made that story up. You never did know what to believe, for the Journal family liked joking so well.
The editor slammed down the receiver and walked toward the composing room with Joan’s story. How would she ever live until the middle of the afternoon when the paper came out? Miss Betty had come back and was working feverishly to get her copy in. Tim came, too, and when he wasn’t busy, Joan told him she had interviewed a Sacred Cow.
“Too bad I wasn’t here to help you,” he said.
Joan kept thinking about her story. The linotype men must be through with it by now. It had been written off by one machine, she was sure—for only the long stories were split up by pages and handed around in order to keep all the linotype men busy. Then the proof was “pulled” and Dummy read that. He would have her copy to follow and would see her name on it. Would he know who J. Martin was?