'
"'No, I haven't, but you get me started, and I'll keep going all right.'
"The next morning he asked how long it took me to get to the office
from Prairie, and I said:
"'I moved last night, I have a room down on Diversey Boulevard now.'
"He looked me over thoughtfully. Then he said: 'You ought to be a
poet.'
"'Why? I haven't any poetic ability that I know of.'
"'Probably not, but you can get along without that. What a poet needs
first of all is nerve.'
"I didn't think of anything apt to say in return so I got to work. Day
after day he tried me out on something new and watched me when he
thought I didn't notice, and went over my work very carefully. One
morning he asked me to write five hundred words on 'The First Job in a
Big City,' bringing out a country aspirant's sensations on the occasion
of his first interview with a prospective employer.
"I still felt so strongly about his insolent assurance that I couldn't
hold down his little old job, that I had no trouble at all with the
assignment. He read it slowly and made no comment, but he gave it a
place in the current issue. And then came a blessed day when he said,
'Well, you are on for good, Miss Starr. I now believe in the
scriptural injunction about seventy times seven, and a kind Providence
cut the margin down for me.
Pages:
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114