Joan of the Journal

by Helen Diehl Olds

  CHAPTER II

  THE JOURNAL FAMILY

  Next morning, Joan did not even hint to Tim that she was planning sometime to follow him. It would seem like “tagging” to him. But she mustlearn all she could about his job. Maybe she could really help him insome way, and then he’d be glad she had taken such an interest.

  She hustled about making beds and putting the house in order. She hadher regular duties, and in the summer-time they were heavier than whenshe went to school. Joan did not like housework. But she always tackledit the way she did everything, and was done before she really had muchtime to think how she hated it. Whenever she demurred at having to dohousehold tasks, when she would rather be over at the _Journal_,learning about newspapers, Mother would say, “Joan, remember that LouisaAlcott often had to drop her pen for her needle or broom.” Sometimes,Mother almost seemed to understand.

  Joan had to stop in the middle of her dusting this morning to answer thetelephone. It was Amy asking her to go for a swim.

  “I can’t—I tell you, I’ve got a job.” Joan told her for the fourth time.Joan adored swimming, even though the inland city of Plainfield offerednothing more than a dammed-up creek.

  A laugh buzzed through the wire. “Jo, don’t be silly.”

  It was hard to refuse Amy. She was one of those bossy girls. But Joanhung on, and though Amy coaxed at great length, she was firm.

  “You’re going to spoil our vacation!” Finally Amy banged down at herend.

  Joan, rising with cramped muscles to resume her work, thought to herselfthat this was going to be the best vacation she ever had becauseshe—well, Tim really—had a job on the _Journal_. As she turned from thetelephone, she saw her mother’s face full of disapproval. Mother alwayswanted her to go with Amy, rather than hang around the _Journal_ office.

  “How could I go, to-day,” she appealed, “when Tim just starts his job? Idon’t know when something may break, and Tim might miss a big story.Why, there might be a big fire right in this block. I have to stickaround.”

  The disapproval did not leave Mother’s face, but she said nothing.

  Everything finished, Joan found it impossible to settle down to reading.It seemed strangely lonesome in the house without Tim. Their vacationhad been going on for a whole week now, and the two had been togethermost of that time, laughing, chattering and bickering with each other.She missed Tim, even if he often did fail to treat her with properrespect.

  She wandered down to the kitchen and was grateful for Mother’s timidsuggestion that the ice box needed cleaning. Anything to keep busy! Shediscovered a quantity of milk. Enough for fudge, she decided. Tim wouldlove some when he came home from work that afternoon. She’d make it fora surprise. She followed the directions Amy had written for her in theback of the thick cook book—a new kind of fudge. It turned outbeautifully. Mother praised it with lavish adjectives. Joan knew itwasn’t that wonderful, but Mother was always pleased when she took aninterest in anything domestic.

  Tim came home for lunch and between mouthfuls he told Joan what he hadwritten up that morning—one really sizable obituary. She hoped he hadput in all the details that the _Journal Style_ booklet had said werenecessary for the well-written obit. That was pretty good for himactually to report something the first day, she thought. She wished hewould tell her in minutest detail, moment by moment, what he had donethat morning, but boys were so vague in their conversations. He merelysaid he had “legged” it all over town—a leg man, is what he was calledon the newspaper.

  Joan was eager to go over to the _Journal_ for the paper as soon as itwas off the press to see Tim’s story. Would Chub remember to call her?

  She would go over sooner if an excuse offered itself, she decided as shesettled down restlessly with a book on the side steps. If only UncleJohn would need her for something; or Miss Betty, who did the societynotes, would send her out for candy to nibble on, or for an extra hairnet or something, as she often did.

  About the middle of the afternoon the call came.

  “Yoo-whoo!” It was Chub at the _Journal_ window. “Come on over.”

  Joan’s book fell on the ground and she hurried over. In the editorialroom, she glanced around. Tim was not at his desk—he had told her thathe was to have the one right next to Mack’s. He was probably out on astory. She hoped it was a big one.

  Mr. Nixon, the editor, was in a good humor and gave the manager’s niecea smile. The editor seldom wore a coat these days. He was usually invest and shirt sleeves which made him seem younger than he really was.The collar button at the back of his neck always showed. Often he wascross and would bellow, “Get a job on a monthly,” at all the unluckyones who tried to plead that their stories were not quite finished. Hewas just as apt to call pretty Miss Betty a nincompoop if she made amistake, as he was to say, when she wrote up a good article, “A few morestories like this, and the _Journal_ won’t be able to hold you.”

  Miss Betty Parker waved hello from her desk by the window. Miss Bettyhad the distinction of being the only woman on the editorial staff.“Here, woman!” was the way the men often summoned her to the telephone.

  There was a pink rose on Miss Betty’s desk. Had Mack, the sport editor,who was there with a green eye shade and a pencil behind his ear, givenit to her? Joan thought it must be lovely to write all those societyitems about the people who lived on the North Side and who gave teas andparties and luncheons and things. Beside that, Miss Betty conducted anAdvice to the Lovelorn Column, which Joan read every evening. She signedher answers, Betty Fairfax. Mack tried to make Joan believe that hewrote the questions, but she knew better than that, because they had hadthem before he came to the _Journal_, which was only a few months ago.

  Somehow, Joan did not like Mack, although he was really almost asgood-looking as Tim. Tim was dark, with wavy hair and dark eyes, whileMack was very blond, with a reddish mustache. Tim had been loud in hisprotest against Mack when he first joined the _Journal_ family, andespecially when he had been made sport editor. “That sissy! Imagine hima sport editor.” But later, he admitted that Mack was a smart fellow.“He has a ‘nose for news’ all right and he certainly can write,” Tim hadadded admiringly.

  Mack’s corner had been fixed up with appropriate sport pictures beforehe came. He had added no new ones. Tim would have.

  There was a member of the _Journal_ staff, of whom Joan approvedwhole-heartedly. That was old James Cook, a veteran reporter, calledCookie by all who knew him. He was fat and old, but kind, and always asgracious to Joan as though she had been Miss Betty’s age.

  “Well, well,” he greeted her now, as he shuffled over to the files. “Ithought the day wouldn’t be complete without your shining face aroundhere. Especially now with brother Tim on the pay roll. When are yougoing to steal Miss Betty’s job away from her?”

  He was not teasing, like Mack. But Joan was embarrassed. She really didhope to have Miss Betty’s job in a few more years, but it hardly seemedpolite to admit it.

  “Just as soon as I get to be the star reporter around here on doublespace rates,” Miss Betty laughed in reply to Cookie, and Joan did notneed to answer.

  Cookie was one of the nicest men in the world—always ready to help anyone. He would even pitch in and help Miss Betty write up social items,pink teas and things when she got rushed. “I can describe a wedding gownas well as any one,” he would brag. He had once been on the _New YorkBanner_, but his health had failed and now he was content to putteralong here on the _Journal_, doing desk work. He was liked by every one.He was always willing to answer all Joan’s questions about thenewspaper. He had taught her long ago that “news is anything timely thatis of interest,” and Joan had learned that phrase by heart before shewas ten. He had told her that the word “news” came from the letters ofthe four points of the compass, north, east, west, and south.

  “Cookie,” Joan reminded him, “you’re always saying you are going to tellChub and me some of your experiences on that big New York newspaper.When are you?”

 
“Oh—some time,” he drawled, as he ambled off.

  Another member of the _Journal_ tribe sauntered up. It was Bossy, thecolored janitor. His steel-rimmed spectacles gave his dark face anowlish look. He sniffed at Betty’s rose. “Hit sho looks just like anartificial one, don’t hit now?” he asked, amiably.

  There was no squelching Bossy. He was a great talker and every one lethim ramble on. He had been the janitor so long that he felt almost asthough he owned the paper. No one felt it more keenly when the _Journal_was “scooped” by the _Star_, than did this same, good-natured Bossy. Heprided himself that he read every word in the _Journal_ every day.

  “Your brother gwine be a newspaper reporter, dat what?” He turned toJoan. “Well, he’ll hab to be careful and not make no mistakes. De_Journal_ got to be careful. Mistakes is bad. Bossy knows.” He mutteredsomething to himself.

  Tim came back into the office now, with a rather disgusted look on hisface, and began pounding his typewriter keys, for all the world like aprovoked small boy doing his detested piano practice. Joan went over andglanced over his shoulder at what he was writing. It was a short articleasking for cast-off baby things, toys and clothing for the babies of thecrowded-to-overflowing day nursery on Grove Street. Of course, Tim wouldhate a “sissy” assignment like that, but Joan would have enjoyed seeingall the babies and having the matron tell her of the things recentlydonated.

  When he finished that story, he started on the rewrites, stories fromthe _Morning Star_ dished up in a different style. Joan glanced at hisdesk. It was cluttered like a real reporter’s. The whole editorialoffice was untidy. The staff seldom used the tall, green metalwastebasket in the corner. They wadded up papers and aimed at it. Chuboften said, “The first person to hit the wastebasket around here will befired.”

  Joan noticed that Tim had tacked a slip of yellow copy paper on the walljust above his typewriter. It read, in the editor’s handwriting:

  Martin— Call Undertakers twice a day, at 9:30 and 1:15. Call Medical Examiner at the same time. Read other papers and clip any local deaths.

  Ugh! Being a cub reporter was sort of a gruesome job. But Tim did notseem to mind that part of it. Would he really like the work, shewondered. He had never been half so crazy about the _Journal_ as shewas.

  “They’re running, Jo!” called Chub from the swinging door to thecomposing room, and Joan hurried after him.

  That meant that the paper was being printed. Joan followed Chub “outback” into the composing room where the linotype machines were allsilent now. This part of the _Journal_ was just as important as thewriting and business end, Joan knew, though Amy did not agree with her.Amy had visited “out back” only once, and then had brushed daintily bythe printers in their ink-smeared aprons. Joan didn’t mind the dirty,dim old place, or the rough men. They might be inky and stained, butthey were kind, always joking together just as the men in the frontoffices did. The “front” and “back” were like brothers of an oddlyassorted family.

  Joan knew all the men back here. The head pressman, the linotype men whooften printed her name in little slim lines of lead for her when theyweren’t busy. But she had to hold the lines up to the looking glass toread her name. It always made her feel like Alice in _Through theLooking Glass_.

  All about on shelves under the long tables stood little tin trays oftype, stacked—stuff ready set for a dearth of news. Joan had learned toread type, too. It was just as easy as anything when you got used to it.

  They passed a gray-haired man sitting hunched on a tall stool, readingyards and yards of proof.

  “Meet the Dummy!” Chub said, with a wave of his hand.

  Joan looked at the man, whom she had seen only once before, with someinterest. Chub’s remark was not so impolite as it seemed, for “dummy” isa word used for the plan of the newspaper before it is made up, andnames apropos of their work delighted the _Journal_ family. Just likeEm, the cat.

  He was a middle-aged man, and seemed rather dignified for a proofreader,with his gray hair and blue eyes.

  “The office Dummy. He can’t hear a sound or say a word,” Chub stated inhis ordinary voice, just at the man’s elbow. “But I’d forgotten that youwere introduced to him the other day when you were over. He came lastweek, you know.”

  The man gave Joan a half-smile of recognition. There was somethingpuzzling about him. Perhaps there was about every deaf-mute. It reallymust be terrible to have to write everything you wanted to say, Joanmused. And not to be able to hear, but still he couldn’t hear the rumbleand clatter of the presses, and that might be a blessing, though Joanliked it.

  Joan recalled what Chub had told her of Dummy. That he had applied forthe job in writing. “I do not speak,” he wrote, “but I can work. I canread proof. I do not have to talk to read proof.” He got the job.

  “Dat new proofreader gives me de creeps,” said a voice behind Joan andChub, and there was Bossy. “Never saying a word, like dat. Hit ain’tnatural.”

  “Well, it is for a deaf-mute,” explained the office boy.

  They went on out to the cement-floored pressroom where the big presseswere. They were roaring like thunder, and whirling endlessly back andforth, over and over. Little ridges of tiny blue flames, to speed up thedrying of the ink, made blobs of color in the drabness. Leather strapsabove the presses were slap-slapping to a dull rhythm. It was a dimplace, old, musty, ink-reeking, but romantic to Joan. And to think thatto-day, this big press was multiplying Tim’s story for the thousands of_Journal_ readers!

  The place had a spell for Chub, too, for it was here that he chose tomention the mystery.

  “Say, Jo, you remember what I said yesterday? Well, there’s nothing newfor me to tell you. When there is, I will. It’s just a mystery, that’sall.”

  “But what’s it about?” pleaded Joan. She hated to be kept in the dark.

  “It’s—well, I guess I can tell you this much,” he granted. “It’sabout—mistakes.” He shouted the last word, to be heard above the roar.

  “Sh!” warned Joan. She was bewildered. Mistakes. It seemed to be inevery one’s mind. First Tim had mentioned mistakes, then Bossy, and nowChub! She wanted to ask more about the mysterious mistakes, but she knewChub would tell her when he was ready and no sooner.

  They went around to the other side of the big Goss press, where a crowdof newsboys, both white and colored, were waiting for the papers. Joanhardly noticed their grins. She rushed to the levers that were shovingthe papers, already folded, and let one be shot right into her hands.

  She looked down at the folded paper, opened it out, and searched thefront page. Tim’s story wasn’t there. She had expected it would be, witha two-column head, at least. But now she realized that was silly. A newcub reporter wouldn’t make the front page, right off like that! Sheturned the pages and hunted. On the back page, she found it—about twoparagraphs long and under the regular obituary heading. She wasthrilled, anyway.

  She clasped the damp paper, reeking of fresh ink, to her chest and theinky letters reprinted themselves in a blur upon the front of her whitemiddy. “My brother wrote that!”

  Over the paper she caught a glimpse of Dummy, who had left his corner inthe other room and appeared now around the big press. Why, the man hadrather a scared look. Had he read her lips and was he afraid of herbrother, perhaps? Maybe Tim’s job wasn’t so safe as they thought. Theman might be plotting against the manager’s nephew. Joan had read ofsuch things, but her thoughts were rather vague.