I had to go to work and was compelled to accept the first opportunity offered to me. I became a dishwasher in a downtown lunchroom at three dollars a week.
It was unsavory work, but it was work, and left me time in the evenings and on Sundays to live in my books.
Bill and I were again reduced to the attic. It did not affect us very much, as we were both in a mood in which we did not care for the nicety of our environment.
One day I heard that a man I knew wanted to see me to tell me about a better job, which, however, was in the dishwashing line, too. He was staying at a lodging house. He was not in when I called there, and I sat down in the reading room to wait for him. The tables were covered with daily papers which are furnished free by the lodging house keepers, and I took one to while the time away.
It was the Evening Journal. I glanced through the news columns and then meant to drop the paper. The only page which had absolutely no interest for me was the women's page. Once, indeed, it had helped to built castles in Spain, and the patterns of gay frocks and dresses had made our "dreams to come true" more enjoyable, but now—it was all different.
Throwing the paper to the table it happened that just that women's page was uppermost. I did not read it, but every once in a while my glance would sweep the page in rambling look. At the bottom of it there was a caption in big type: "The Evening Journal's True Love Story Contest." The caption was so conspicuous that my eye could not help meeting it every time I looked at the page. My wait was long. I did not care to go over the news columns again, and at last I began reading the True Love Story.
It was not a bad story, still the features of it were not very extraordinary. I finished it, and then soliloquized.
"If the story of this man is worth printing, why not mine? All there is to his story is that he and the girl had a quarrel before the marriage eventually took place. Neither one of them had to undergo a self-sacrifice. Would it be sacrilegious to tell the story of my Mamie Rose? Or would it not rather inspire greater unselfishness in those who are in love?"
I discussed this question with myself for some time, and then came to the conclusion that the memory of my little girl would not be profaned by having the story of our love told. To this very day I am not sure whether I did right in giving way to my inclination. Perhaps I acted indelicately, but on the other hand I am not refined or cultured, and the dictates of my heart are generally decisive in a question of this kind.
I did not have a scrap of paper in my pocket, but saw a piece of yellow wrapping paper on the floor. I examined its cleanliness, and, finding it fairly clean, began to write my story. The conditions were rather severe for an amateur author. The story had to be told in less than seven hundred and fifty words.