Almost from the very beginning of her visit Jimmie began telling her of his stories and shyly asked her to help him. He wanted her to read them and to tell him just what she really thought. Sister Amy’s interest in her younger brother’s career as a forthcoming author was not casual, but really of great concern.
She did everything in her power as a woman and as a sister to encourage her kid brother and to help him in every way possible. She even went so far as to check his make shift manuscripts for the errors in punctuation, sentence structure and spelling.
Perhaps the greatest step she took in the furthering of her brother’s career was to arouse the interest of Fred Janette, great newspaperman and contributor to Golden Days magazine.
To Jimmie this “introduction” was nothing short of a miracle. To get the great Fred Janette interested in his writings was indeed a mighty step toward his future as an author.
Now with the noted journalist interested in him, together with his sister’s constant coaxing, Jimmie was at last persuaded to send one of his seemingly impossible creations to the editor of Happy Hours magazine. Amy knew her brother’s work was not of literary quality but merely wanted to see the editor’s reaction and just how the manuscript would be treated. So the hand-written story was posted and within a few days, as was expected, the postman returned it with a neatly printed rejection slip attached to it.
The feature of it all was that the slip bore words of kind encouragement to the aspiring author. For the editor of Happy Hours realized that a child had submitted the script and had judged it accordingly.
The little pink slip assured the boy that if he would keep everlastingly at it he would eventually succeed in having his stories published. From that time on his rapidly maturing mind was on nothing else save that of writing. School and work entered into his everyday routine, of course, but even while he was attending to these duties he still was thinking of writing.
To add to his happiness he received in the mail one day a letter from Fred Janette himself asking the boy to send him one of his stories. Jimmie was jubilant. The very next day Amy mailed out one of her brother’s very best manuscripts which she herself had transcribed for legibility.
Several days elapsed before the anxiously waiting Curwood family received any word on the judgment of Jimmie’s story. Eventually it came through. Mr. Janette was returning the manuscript but on the fly leaf was the following inscription:
“Keep at it, fellow, you cannot fail!”