CHAPTER XIV
SACRED COW
“That is the curse of the newspaper game,” said Mr. Nixon one busy lunchtime, a few days later, as he banged down the receiver of his deskphone.
The office was deserted except for Cookie, over in his corner, and Joan,who had strolled in expecting to find Miss Betty. But the society editorhad gone to report a lecture at the Music Club luncheon. Tim and Mackwere out, too; Cookie did not look up at the editor’s remark. So itseemed that he must be talking to Joan.
“What is?” she asked.
“What?” his bushy brows went up. “I guess I was talking to myself. It’sa sign of old age. But I meant—Sacred Cow.”
Sacred Cow. Joan didn’t understand. Cookie was busy, but she just had toask him. He was always nice about questions.
“Why, just a ‘puff’—you know, free publicity for advertisers. They neverseem to ask for it at a reasonable time, but always when we have to doeverything but hold the presses to give it to them.”
Then, of course, Joan knew. Those squibs Miss Betty sometimes stuck intothe society columns about what good dinners the Tea Room served. Thatwas Sacred Cow.
“The story is only a means of getting the store’s name in the paper,”Cookie went on. Then he called across to the editor, “What is it thistime, Nix?”
“Window display at Davis’,” was the answer. “And every one’s going to bebusy this afternoon. Want it in to-day’s paper, too—and I’ve no one tosend.”
Cookie was not sent out on stories any more; he was too old.
Joan suddenly felt as she had when she had been tempted to change Tim’sstory about Tommy and the overcrowded Day Nursery. That had turned outall right. Should she take a chance again?
“Mr. Nixon,” she approached his desk timidly, “couldn’t I go?”
“You?” The editor looked up. “But you can’t write.”
“Oh, yes, I can,” Joan assured him. “I can compose right on thetypewriter, too, just the way the rest of the reporters do. I—I,” shehated to tell him this, but she couldn’t miss such an opportunity, “Iwrote part of that Day Nursery story for Tim. You see, I know more aboutbabies than he does.”
“Babies—” repeated the editor. “This is a baby window display. Girl, Ilike your spunk and I believe I’ll let you try. Run along.”
Joan wanted to ask a dozen questions. Which window was it? Was she tosee any one in particular? What kind of a write-up did he want? One ofthose chummy intimate chats that Miss Betty sometimes wrote, or a stiff,formal article?
But she didn’t ask any of them. He had said she could go. If shebothered him, he might change his mind. She said only, “O.K.,” the wayChub always did, and went over to Tim’s desk. There she helped herselfto a yellow pencil, furnished by the _Journal_, and a folded pad of copypaper. She would take plenty of notes. She had helped often around the_Journal_, but this was the first assignment that she was to do all byherself and as luck had it, she had on her tan sweater outfit. Chub,appearing suddenly, slapped her on the back as she went out, with “Goodluck!”
At the corner she almost ran into Mack, who was coming out of arestaurant door. “Where’s the fire?” he asked, seeing her hurry. In herenthusiasm, she could not resist saying, “I’m covering a story for thepaper, Mack.”
He stared at her. He was an odd creature, she reflected. Any one elsewould have been decent about it. But, of course, he disliked her becauseshe was the sister of his rival.
“Did you notice who was with me, just now?” he asked.
Joan shook her head. She had vaguely seen a big sort of man strollingoff, but had been too occupied with her own thoughts really to notice.
Mack continued to stare at her. “I believe I’ll tell you, kid. You see,I found out that you and that office boy think Dummy’s a crook. Well, sodo I. So I thought I’d do some investigating on my own hook. I was justtrying to pump Tebbets about him. Keep quiet about all this.”
“All right.” Joan was too engrossed in being sent on her first realassignment to bother much about anything, even about the office mystery.At least, Mack wasn’t laughing at them for thinking Dummy a spy—the wayTim probably would have. Rather the sport editor now seemed very much inearnest. Of course, he wanted to be the one to solve the problem inorder to shine in Miss Betty’s eyes.
A few blocks more and she was at Davis’ Department Store. She gotpanicky. Maybe she shouldn’t have come. After all, she wasn’t a realreporter. Oh, what an adorable window! Chubby, lifelike baby figures,clad in abbreviated sun suits, playing in real sand. This must be thewindow. Joan pressed her face against the glass and took in details.Writing this up would be fun! Wouldn’t Tommy look cunning in one ofthose suits?
That reminded her that Tommy’s mother was in Davis’, just inside thedoor at the handkerchief counter. She would ask her about the window.
“Mr. Dugan, the floorwalker, will be glad to tell you about the window,Joan,” Tommy’s mother said. “He adores kids, and that window is a pet ofhis.”
Mr. Dugan was lovely (Joan’s word), a tall man in striped trousers and acutaway coat, who looked more like an usher at a stylish wedding than afloorwalker. He took her to the window and explained about the suits,saying that Davis’ was the first store in Plainfield to show them. Joanmade a note of that on her pad and underscored it.
“You see, in these suits, the babies get all the necessary vitaminesfrom the sunshine.”
Joan bent over her pad. “Vitamine—” she didn’t know how to spell it, butshe could look it up when she got back to the office.
Mr. Dugan saw her dilemma. “V-i-t-a-m-i-n-e,” he spelled, without evensmiling. He went on and told her about the New York lecturer who wouldtalk to the mothers on the importance of sunshine.
When Joan thanked him for his kindness, he said, “I’ve enjoyed it all,too, for I never was interviewed by such an inspired young newspaperreporter. Most of them are so bold and prepossessing that you hate totell ’em anything.”
That was because this was her very first assignment and she had beenscared to pieces. Of course, it was probably just good luck that Mr.Dugan had proved so amiable—what Tim called a “lucky break.”
She hurried back to the _Journal_, meeting Amy just at the big doubledoors of the red-front Five and Ten. She was on her way to buy aheart-shaped powder puff, special that day for only ten cents. She urgedJoan to come in and indulge, too.
“I can’t,” Joan displayed her yellow notes, importantly. “I’ve got adead-line to make.”
“You funny kid. Your nose is shiny.”
Joan didn’t mind her laughing. She was too happy over her assignment tolet anything worry her. Amy knew that she had not started powdering yet,except when she went to parties.
Luckily, Tim was still out on his assignment, and she could have histypewriter undisturbed. It wasn’t a good machine; it worked hard and thecommas were all headless, which made the composition rather confusing.Chub came over and hung around her typewriter, while Joan worked on herstory. She had read scores of fashion notes, store openings, and so on,following Miss Betty through all her literary adventures, so that shenow had a fairly clear idea of how to go about writing up the Davisdisplay window.
Just as she had with the Day Nursery story, she made the youngster whowas to wear the sun suit, and receive its benefits, very real andfascinating. No one could resist the story’s appeal. Every mother whoread it would say, “That’s just the thing for Billy and Betty,” andwould go right down to the store. She had the facts, too, and evenquoted 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 fourtriple-spaced typed pages to a column. Recalling Miss Betty’s recentwrite-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 thana page of typewriting.
At last the story satisfied her and she retyped it. She had made toomany changes
in the original to hand that draft in, although she knewthat was the way real reporters did. What name should she put in theupper left-hand corner? If she put simply Martin, every one would thinkTim had written it, and he would be blamed if there were any mistakes init. “Joan” would be too informal, so she decided on J. MARTIN, and typedit in capitals, the way Tim did.
She left a space for the “head.” The _Journal_ headlines were writtenright on the copy. What kind would it have—a No. 1 italic, or atwo-column boldface? Joan had often tried to learn headline writing butdiscovered that finding words to fit the spaces was harder thancross-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 haddevised such a “lead.” She remembered that Cookie once told them about ayoung 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, andthen hired a boat to go rowing. Not until the last paragraph did thereader learn that the young man had been drowned. That was the wrong wayto write news stories, Cookie explained.
Was her story good enough? For a moment, she was tempted not to hand itin, 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 thetelephone, listening with one cheek held against the mouthpiece to shutout the office noises. He nodded at her and began to read copy on thestory while he listened to the telephone conversation, answering withmonosyllables. It might be a tip for a big news story he was getting, orit might be Mrs. Editor on the other end of the wire, telling him aboutthe baby. Once Chub had told Joan that Mrs. Editor had telephoned thatthe baby had a tooth—her first. The connection had been poor and for afew moments the office was thrown into consternation, because the editorhad understood her to say, “Ruthie has the croup.” Perhaps, though, Chubhad 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 composingroom with Joan’s story. How would she ever live until the middle of theafternoon when the paper came out? Miss Betty had come back and wasworking feverishly to get her copy in. Tim came, too, and when he wasn’tbusy, 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 throughwith it by now. It had been written off by one machine, she was sure—foronly the long stories were split up by pages and handed around in orderto keep all the linotype men busy. Then the proof was “pulled” and Dummyread that. He would have her copy to follow and would see her name onit. Would he know who J. Martin was?
She heard the presses going—and a sick feeling clutched her. Suppose shehad made some terrible mistake in the story?
One minute she wanted to run out after the papers as she often did. Butthat would seem over-anxious. The next minute, she wanted to run homeand not even look at the story. Oh, wouldn’t some one ever go back afterthe papers?
Finally, Chub and Gertie emerged through the swinging door. Gertie had abunch of papers over her arm, and so did Chub. Hers were for countersales in the front office. Chub handed one to each member of the staff,as was his custom. Then he came to Joan, sitting there, silentlytwisting her tie.
“Here’s yours.” He handed her a copy, damp and limp, it was so freshfrom the press.
She took the paper. She remembered that day, so long ago it seemed,though it was only a month and a half, when she had read Tim’s firststory, and now—she was going to read her own. Her own first story. Inthe _Journal_. “Thank you, Chub,” her voice came in a whisper.
Chub looked at her, staring at the paper. “Gosh, ain’t you going to huntup your story? Ain’t on the front page, for I saw the page proof ofthat. Here let me help you hunt. Don’t you know a reporter,” he drew theword out, deliciously, as though he were chewing a caramel, “should readover his stuff _after_ it’s printed?”
“Yes, I know.” Her hand actually shook as she turned the pages. Togetherthey scanned the paper, down one column and up the next, their eyesdarting from one headline to another. At length they found it buried onone of the inside pages, but with an italicized headline that made it areally, truly feature story. There it was, just as she had written it.
Only one word was changed. She had used the word “ladies” and in thepaper, it was “women.” She remembered now that the booklet, _JournalStyle_, had said, “Do not use the term ‘lady,’ except to designate thewife of an English lord.” Of course, that was just part of the _Journal_policy, but she wished she had not forgotten.
“That’s a good story, Joan.” Mr. Nixon was smiling at her. “I guess theDavis Department Store won’t have any kick on the kind of stuff we give’em.”
“What page?” Miss Betty was turning over her copy of the _Journal_.After she had discovered it and read it, she announced, “That’s a dandystory, Jo.”
“It is that.” Cookie added his bit.
Tim glanced at it, rather casually, Joan thought, and decided, “It’spretty good for just a sub-cub reporter.”
Even Mack was nice enough to nod.
Joan could only grin like a Cheshire cat, blinking in the bewildermentof so much praise. Then, hugging the paper to her, she started home toshow it to Mother. Mrs. Martin was busy cutting up an old dress, but sheput her work aside and sat down in the porch rocker to read the story.
“Why, Joan,” she finished it at last. “I didn’t know you could do thingslike this. It sounds as good as what Tim writes. I believe you’d make abetter reporter than he, after all. I feel as though I had seen Davis’window, myself. I’ll go around past there on my way to the AuxiliaryMeeting, just to see it. I want to.” She smiled. “Guess I’ll have to letyou be a newspaper woman, after this.”
That from Mother!
To cover her confusion at Mother’s words, Joan dashed into the diningroom and started setting the table, though it wasn’t nearly time. As sheplaced the silverware around, she began to wonder about Mack. She wasn’tsure whether she was glad or sorry that he knew they suspected Dummy ofbeing a spy.