numbered consecutively, just as he had numbered the manila envelopes.
Articles are cut from magazines, the leaves secured together with brass
fasteners, and on the first page margin at the top are marked the file
number and letter of compartment where the article belongs. Thus, if
the article is kept out of the file for any length of time it can be
readily returned to its proper place. Newspaper clippings are handled
in precisely the same way.
The card index has its divisions and sub-divisions. Cards indexing
articles on various countries have a place under the general letter,
and another place in the geographical section under the same letter. So
with articles concerning Noted Personages, Astronomy, Antiquities, etc.
Below, for the benefit of any one who may wish to use the system, is
reproduced a card from the file:
ARMY, U. S.
Hand Bill used to secure enlistments "A" 1
Army Story "Knew It" "K" 1
Army Story "A Philippine Romance" "P" 1
Army Story "He is Crazy Jack" "C" 1
Army Story "Their Very Costly Meal" "T" 1
Army Story "Siege of Bigbag" "S" 1
"Fighting Life in the Philippines" "F" 1
Pay of Soldiers "Young Man--" "Y" 2
In this system the character of the material is first indicated, as
_Pay of Soldiers_. If there is a title it follows in quotation marks.
Where the title suggests the character of the material sufficiently,
the title comes first, in "quotes." Then follows the letter under which
the article is filed, and the number of the file. Suppose it is desired
to find out what soldiers of the United States' Army are paid for their
services: File No. 2 is removed from the shelf, opened at letter "Y"
and the information secured under title beginning, "Young Man--."
As a saver of time, and a guard against annoyance when fancies are
running free, Edwards has found his card-index system for clippings
almost ideal.
A friend of Edwards' is what the comic papers call a "jokesmith."
Recently he concocted the following:
"You must be doing well," said Jones the merchant to Quill the
writer, meeting him in front of his house. "You seem to be always
busy, and you look prosperous."
"So I am, Jones," answered Quill, "busy and prosperous. Come into the
basement with me and I'll show you the secret of my prosperity."
They descended into the basement and Quill rang up the curtain on a
ragman weighing three big bags of rejection slips.
"My stories all come back," confessed Quill, triumphantly, "and I get
three cents a pound for the rejection slips that come with them."
This, of course, was not much of a joke, but the perpetrator sent it
to _Judge_. _Judge_ sent it back with about twenty blank rejection
slips inclosed by a rubber band. On the top slip was written: "Here
are some more.--Ed. _Judge_."
X.
THE WOLF
AT THE DOOR
Perhaps very few men in this life escape a period as black and
dispiriting as was the year 1897 for Edwards. If not in one way, then
in another, it is the fate of a man to be chastened and subdued so
thoroughly, at least once in his career, that a livid remembrance of it
remains always with him. Edwards has always been an optimist, but those
blows of circumstance of the year 1897 found many weak places in the
armor of his philosophy.
In tangling and untangling the threads of a story plot Edwards had
become tolerably proficient, but in straightening out the snarls Fate
had made in his own life he was crushed with a feeling of abject
helplessness. There is a vast difference, it seems, in dealing with the
complications of others and those that beset ourselves. The impersonal
attitude makes for keener analysis and wiser judgment.
In a story, the poverty stricken hero and his wife may exist for a week
on a loaf of bread, ten cents' worth of potatoes and a twenty-cent
soup-bone; but let the man who creates such a hero attempt to emulate
his fictional fancies and stark realism plays havoc with the equation.
The wolf at our own door is one sort of animal, and the wolf at our
neighbor's is of an altogether different breed.
The thermometer in Southern Arizona was "eighty in the shade" when
Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, during the Christmas holidays, set their faces
eastward. New York City, the shrine of so many pilgrims seeking
prosperity, was their goal; and the metropolis, on that bleak New
Year's Day that witnessed their arrival, was shivering in the grip
of real, old-fashioned winter. The change from a balmy climate to
blizzards and ice and a below-zero temperature brought Edwards to his
bed with a vicious attack of rheumatism. For days while the little fund
of $100 melted steadily away, he lay helpless.
The great city, in its dealings with impecunious strangers, has been
painted in cruel colors. Edwards found this to be a mistake. On the
occasion of their first visit to New York he and his wife had found
quarters in a boarding house in Forty-fourth street. A pleasant
landlady was in charge and the Edwards had won her friendship.
Here, forming one happy family, were actors and actresses, a salesman
in a down-town department store, a stenographer, a travelling man for
a bicycle house, and others. All were cheerful and kindly, and took
occasion to drop in at the Edwards' third floor front and beguile the
tedious hours for the invalid.
Fourteen years have brought many changes to Forty-fourth street between
Broadway and Sixth avenue. The row of high-stoop brownstone "fronts"
has that air of neglect which precedes demolition and the giving way of
the old order to the new. The basement, where the pleasant landlady sat
at her long table and smiled at the raillery and wit of "Beaney," and
Sam, and "Smithy," and Ruth, and Ina and the rest, has fallen sadly
from its high estate. A laundry has taken possession of the place. And
"Beaney," the light-hearted one who laughed at his own misfortunes
and sympathized with the misfortunes of others, "Beaney" has gone to
his long account. A veil as impenetrable has fallen over the pleasant
landlady, Sam, "Smithy," Ruth and Ina; and where-ever they may be,
Edwards, remembering their kindness to him in his darkest days, murmurs
for each and all of them a fervent "God bless you!"....
Before he was compelled to take to his bed Edwards had called at the
offices of Harte & Perkins. His interview with Mr. Perkins impressed
upon him the fact that, once a place upon the contributors' staff of
a big publishing house is relinquished it is difficult to regain.
Others had been given the work which Edwards had had for three years.
These others were turning in acceptable manuscripts and, in justice
to them, Harte & Perkins could not take the work out of their hands.
Mr. Perkins, however, did give Edwards an order for four Five-Cent
Libraries--stories to be held in reserve in case manuscripts from
regular contributors failed to arrive in time. On Feb. 11 he received a
letter from the firm to the following effect:
"When we wrote you day before yesterday asking you to turn in four
Five-Cent Libraries before doing anything else in the Library line
for us, we were under the impression that the gentleman who has been
engaged upon this work for some time would not be able to turn the
material in with usual regularity on account of illness, but we hear
from him today that he is now in better health, and will be able to
keep up with the work, which he is very anxious to do, and somewhat
jealous of having any other material in the series so long as he can
fill the bill. On this account it will be well for you to stop work
on the Library. When you have completed the story on which you are
now engaged, turn your attention to the Ten-Cent Library work, which
we think you will be able to do to our satisfaction."
This will illustrate the attitude which some authors assume toward the
"butter-in." All of a certain grist that comes to a publisher's mill
must be _their_ grist. If the mill ground for another, and found the
product better than ordinary, the other might secure a "stand-in" that
would threaten the prestige of the regular contributor.
In seeking to keep his head above water financially, Edwards attempted
to sell book rights of "The Astrologer," the serial published in 1891
in _The Detroit Free Press_. He had written, also, 66 pages of a
present-tense Gunteresque story which he hoped would win favor as had
his other stories in that style. This yarn he called "Croesus, Jr."
Both manuscripts were submitted to Harte & Perkins.
On Jan. 28, when the Edwards' exchequer was nearly depleted, "Croesus,
Jr.," was returned with this written message:
"It might be said of the story in a way that it is readable, but it
does not promise as good a story as we desire for this series. 'Most
decidedly,' says the reader, 'it lacks originality, novelty and
strength.' This criticism, which we consider entirely competent, must
deter us from considering the story favorably."
This was blow number one. Blow number two was delivered Feb. 3:
"We have had your manuscript, 'The Astrologer,' examined, and the
verdict is that it would not be suitable for any of our regular
publications, and it is not in our line for book publication. The
reader states that it very humorous in parts but rather long drawn
out.... We return manuscript."
Two Five-Cent Libraries at $40 each were accepted and paid for; also
four sketches written for a small magazine which Harte & Perkins were
starting.[E]
Although he grew better of his rheumatism, Edwards failed to improve
materially in health, and late in March he and his wife returned
to Chicago. They rented a modest flat on the North Side, got their
household effects out of storage, and faced the problem of existence
with a courage scarcely warranted by their circumstances.
Edwards was able to work only half a day. The remainder of the day he
spent in bed with an alternation of chills and fever and a grevious
malady growing upon him. During this period he tried syndicating
articles in the newspapers but without success. He also wrote for Harte
& Perkins a "_Guest_" serial, the order for which he had brought back
with him from New York. He made one try for this by submitting the
first few chapters and synopsis of story which he called "A Vassar
Girl." These were returned to him as unsuitable. He then wrote seven
chapters of a serial entitled, "A Girl from the Backwoods," and--with
much fear and trembling be it confessed--sent them on for examination.
Under date of July 8 this word was returned:
"The seven chapters of 'A Girl from the Backwoods' read very good,
and we should like to have you finish the story, and should it prove
satisfactory in its entirety, we should consider it an acceptable
story."
Here was encouragement at a time when encouragement was sorely needed.
But how to keep the Factory going while the story was being finished
was a difficult question. There were times when twenty-five cents
had to procure a Sunday dinner for two; and there was a time when
two country cousins arrived for a visit, and Edwards had not the
half-dollar to pay an expressman for bringing their trunks from the
station! Pride, be it understood, was one of Edwards' chief assets. He
had always been a regal spender, and his country cousins knew it. How
the lack of that fifty-cent piece grilled his sensitive soul!
It was during these trying times that the genius of Mrs. Edwards showed
like a star in the heavy gloom. On next to nothing she contrived to
supply the table, and the conjuring she could do with a silver dollar
was a source of never-failing wonder to her husband.
Edwards remembers that, at a time when there was not even car-fare
in the family treasury, a check for $1.50 arrived in payment for a
1,500-word story that had been out for several years.
During the latter part of July the demand for money pending the
completion of "A Girl from the Backwoods" became so insistent, that
Edwards wrote and submitted to Harte & Perkins a sketch for their
magazine. It contained 1,232 words and was purchased on Aug. 3 for
$6.16.
"A Girl from the Backwoods" was submitted late in September, and was
returned on Oct. 13 for a small correction. The following letter, dated
Oct. 27, was received from the editor of the "Guest:"
"The manuscript of 'A Girl from the Backwoods', also the correction
which you have made, have been duly received. The correction is very
satisfactory.
In regard to your suggestion about the heroine's name being that of a
well known writer, we would say that inasmuch as the name is rather
appropriate and suits the character we do not see that the lady who
already bears it would in any way find fault with your use of it, and
at present we think it may be allowed to stand."
As showing Edwards' pecuniary distress, the following paragraph from a
letter from Harte & Perkins, dated Oct. 28, may be given:
"In response to your favor of the 19th and your telegram of
yesterday,[F] we enclose you herewith our check for $200 in full for
your story 'A Girl from the Backwoods.' This is the best price we
can make you for this and other stories of this class from your pen,
and it is a somewhat better one than we are now paying for similar
material from other writers. We believe this will be satisfactory to
you."
The price was not satisfactory. Edwards and his wife had counted upon
receiving at least $300 for the story, and they needed that amount
sorely. A respectful letter at once went forward to Harte & Perkins,
appealing to their sense of justice and fairness, which Edwards had
never yet known to fail him. On Nov. 3 came an additional check for
$100, and these words:
"Replying to your favor of Nov. 1st, at hand today, we beg to
state that we shall, agreeably with your request and especially as
you put it in such strong terms, make the payment on 'A Girl from
the Backwoods' $300. The story is much liked by our reader and we
do think it is worth as much if not more than the Stella Edwards
material which, however, in the writer's judgement was much overpaid.
We shall take this into account when considering the acceptance of
other stories from your pen, and while we do not say positively that
we will not pay $300 for the next one, as we wrote you in our last
letter this is a high price for this class of material and we will
expect to pay you according to our views as to the value of the
manuscript."
The year closed with an order from Harte & Perkins for another story
of the Stella Edwards sort; a very dismal year indeed, and showing
Factory returns as follows:
Two Five-Cent Libraries at $40 $ 80.00
Four magazine sketches at $10 40.00
One magazine sketch 6.16
"A Girl from the Backwoods," 300.
---------
Total $426.16
Perhaps, after all, this was not doing so badly; for during this year,
and the year immediately following, Edwards was to discover that he had
had one foot in the grave. But his fortunes were at their lowest ebb.
With 1898 they were to begin taking an upward turn.
Some one said that some one else, by using Ignatius Donnelly's
cryptogram, proved that the late Bill Nye wrote the Shakespeare
plays. This, of course, is merely a reflection on the cryptogram;
BUT if Shakespeare's publishers had not been so slovenly with that
folio edition of his plays, there would never have been any hunt for
a cipher, nor any of this Bacon talk.
* * * * *
"In the early days, when I lived on the plains of Western Kansas
on a homestead," says John H. Whitson, well and favorably known to
dozens of editors, "I was nosed out by a correspondent for a Kansas
City paper, who thought there was something bizarre in the fact
that an author was living the simple life of a Western Settler. The
purported interview he published was wonderful concoction! He gave
a descriptive picture of the dug-out in which I lived, and filled
in the gaps with other matter drawn from his imagination, making me
out a sort of literary troglodyte; whereas, as a matter of fact, I
had never lived in a dug-out. On top of it, one of my homesteading
friends asked me in all seriousness how much I had paid to get that
write-up and picture in the Kansas City paper, and seemed to think I
was doing some tall lying when I said I had paid nothing."
FOOTNOTES:
[E] This magazine, by the way, which had an humble beginning, has grown
into one of the high class "populars" and has a wide circulation.
[F] Telegram sent on same day letter was received saying story was
satisfactory.
XI
WHEN FICTION IS
STRANGER THAN TRUTH.
We are told that "fiction hath in it a higher end than fact," which we
may readily believe; and we may also concede that "truth is stranger
than fiction," at least in its occasional application. Nevertheless, in
the course of his career as a writer Edwards has created two fictional
fancies which so closely approximated truth as to make fiction stranger
than truth; and, in one case, the net result of imagination was to
coincide exactly with real facts of which the imagination could take
no account. Perhaps each of these two instances is unique in its
particular field; they are, in any event, so odd as to be worthy of
note.
In the early 90's, when a great deal of Edwards' work was appearing,
unsigned, in _The Detroit Free Press_, he wrote for that paper a brief
sketch entitled, "The Fatal Hand." The sketch was substantially as
follows:
"The Northern Pacific Railroad had just been built into Helena,
Montana, and I happened to be in the town one evening and stepped
into a gambling hall. Burton, a friend of mine, was playing poker
with a miner and two professional gamblers. I stopped beside the
table and watched the game.
Cards had just been drawn. Burton, as soon as he had looked at his
hand, calmly shoved the cards together, laid them face-downward
in front of him, removed a notebook from his pocket and scribbled
something on a blank leaf. 'Read that,' said he, 'when you get back
to your hotel tonight.'
The play proceeded. Presently the miner detected one of the
professional gamblers in the act of cheating. Words were passed,
the lie given. All the players leaped to their feet. Burton, in
attempting to keep the miner from shooting, received the gambler's
bullet and fell dead upon the scattered cards.
An hour later, when I reached my hotel, I thought of the note Burton
had handed me. It read: 'I have drawn two red sevens. I now hold
jacks full on red sevens. It is a fatal hand and I shall never
leave this table alive. I have $6,000 in the First National Bank
at Bismarck. Notify my mother, Mrs. Ezra J. Burton, Louisville,
Kentucky.'"
This small product of the Fiction Factory was pure fiction from
beginning to end. In the original it had the tang of point and
counterpoint which caused it to be seized upon by other papers and
widely copied. This gave extensive publicity to the "fatal hand"--the
three jacks and two red sevens contrived by Edwards out of a small
knowledge of poker and the cabala of cards.
Yet, what was the result?
A month later the Chicago papers published an account of a police raid
on a gambling room. As the officers rushed into the place a man at one
of the tables fell forward and breathed his last. "Heart disease," was
the verdict. But note: A police officer looked at the cards the dead
man had held and found them to be _three jacks and two red sevens_.
A week later _The New York Recorder_ gave space to a news story in
which a man was slain at a gaming table in Texas. When the smoke of the
shooting had blown away some one made the discovery that he had held
the fatal hand.
From that time on for several months the fatal hand left a trail of
superstition and gore all over the West. How many murders and hopeless
attacks of heart failure it was responsible for Edwards had no means
of knowing, but he could scarcely pick up a paper without finding an
account of some of the ravages caused by his "jacks full on red sevens."
Query: Were the reporters of the country romancing? If not, will some
psychologist kindly rise and explain how a bit of fiction could be
responsible for so much real tragedy?
In this instance, fancy established a precedent for fact; in the case
that follows, the frankly fictitious paralleled the unknown truth in
terms so exact that the story was recognized and appropriated by the
son of the story's hero.
While Edwards was in Arizona he was continually on the alert for story
material. The sun, sand and solitude of the country "God forgot"
produce types to be found nowhere else. He ran out many a trail
that led from adobe-walled towns into waterless deserts and bleak,
cacti-covered hills to end finally at some mine or cattle camp. It
was on one of these excursions that he was told how a company of men
had built a dam at a place called Walnut Grove. This dam backed up
the waters of a river and formed a huge lake. Mining for gold by the
hydraulic method was carried on profitably in the river below the dam.
One night the dam "went out" and a number of laborers were drowned.
With this as the germ of the plot Edwards worked out a story. He called
it "A Study in Red," and it purported to show how a lazy Maricopa
Indian, loping along on his pony in the gulch below Walnut Grove, gave
up his mount to a white girl, daughter of the superintendent of the
mining company, and while she raced on to safety he remained to die in
the flood from the broken dam.
The story was published in _Munsey's Magazine_. _Six years later_ the
author received a letter from the Maricopa Indian Reservation, sent to
New York in care of the F. A. Munsey Company. The letter was from a
young Maricopa.
"I have often read the account of my father's bravery, and how he
saved the life of the beautiful white girl when the Walnut Grove dam
gave way. I have kept the magazine, and whenever I feel blue, or life
does not go to please me, I get the story and read it and take heart
to make the best of my lot and try to pattern after my father.
I have long wanted to write you, and now I have done so. I am back
from the Indian School at Carlisle, on a visit to my people, and am
impelled to send you this letter of appreciation and thanks for the
story about my father."
Now, pray, what is one to think of this? The letter bears all the
earmarks of a _bona fide_ performance and was written and mailed on the
Reservation. Edwards' fiction, it seems, had become sober fact for this
young Maricopa Indian. Or did his father really die by giving up his
pony to the "beautiful young white girl?" And was Edwards' prescience
doing subliminal stunts when he wrote the story?
John Peter, should this ever meet your eyes will you please communicate
further with the author of "A Study in Red?" It has been some years now
since a letter, sent to you at the Reservation, failed of a reply. And
the letter has not been returned.
XII
FORTUNE BEGINS
TO SMILE
Edwards' literary fortunes all but reached financial zero in 1897;
with 1898 they began to mount, although the tendency upward was not
very pronounced until the month of April. During the first quarter of
the year he wrote and sold one Stella Edwards serial entitled "Lovers
En Masque." His poor health continued, and he was able to work only a
few hours each day, but the fact that he could drive himself to the
typewriter and lash his wits into evolving acceptable work gave him
encouragement to keep at it. Early in April, with part of the proceeds
from the serial story for expenses, he made a trip to New York.
"Prospecting trips" is the name Edwards gives to his frequent journeys
to the publishing center of the country. He prospected for orders,
prospected for better prices, prospected for new markets. No fiction
factory can be run successfully on a haphazard system for disposing of
its product. There must be some market in prospect, and on the wheel of
this demand the output must be shaped as the potter shapes his clay.