“What’d the post office man give you?”
“Just a notice about the letter carriers organizing a bowling team,” he told her. “Run on, now. Maybe this isn’t anything. You can meet me at the Journal and I’ll tell you.”
She did go on, then. Tim might tell Mother if she didn’t, and then she’d be told not to bother her brother. She couldn’t expect them to understand that she’d only been trying to help.
Joan was sitting on the sunny stone step of the Journal office, half an hour later, when Tim returned.
“It’ll be a dandy feature,” he announced. “May even make the front page.” He forgot it was just his “kid” sister to whom he was talking. He had to tell some one. “That father deserted those children. I turned them over to the Welfare Society.” He told her details, excitedly.
Joan hung about the Journal office, though Tim hinted openly that she should go home. She wasn’t going to leave now. Tim was working hard over his story of the deserted children. The father’s name was Albert Jackson and he lived in South Market Street, a poor section of the city.
Tim was getting nervous over the story. He was sitting on the edge of his chair and squinting at the machine before him. Finally, he jerked the page out, crushed it into a wad and dropped it on the floor.
“Nixon’ll jump on me for such awful-looking copy,” he muttered. “I’ll have to do the whole thing over.”
The editor often remarked that “copy” didn’t need to be perfect, but it had to be understandable to avoid mistakes, and he often told the young reporters, when they handed him scratched-up copy, “Don’t economize on paper. There’s plenty around here and it’s free. Do it over, if there are too many changes.”
Tim reached for the sheet and straightened it out. “It’s written all right, I guess—”