RICH BOY, POOR BOY
The _Journal_ started a contest to boost circulation. The boy readers
were asked to write in on the subject of their favorite baseball player.
The scheme worked, too, for the lists showed many new subscribers since
the boys had been sending in their letters. Every day now, Tim was
writing a story about how the letters were coming in and which player
was leading in popularity for that day—a funny little column, so full of
wit and real sport news that even Mr. Nixon noticed it.
“We’ll make a regular columnist out of you, Martin,” he teased. “That
and sports seem to be your long suits. Guess you like ’em better than
straight news stuff. But stick at the cub job. You have lots to learn.”
He glanced at Tim’s copy in his hand. “Don’t say an accident took place;
weddings take place, accidents occur. And remember _Journal_
style—‘street’ gets lower case, ‘Avenue,’ upper case.”
Mr. Nixon couldn’t give a real compliment to save his soul, Joan
thought, but Tim was grinning understandingly, and promised to remember
about street and Avenue. That meant that Avenue was spelled with a
capital, while street was not. Purely _Journal_ style.
From the very first day of the contest they were swamped with letters.
Miss Betty and Mack took turns reading them, but soon they were too busy
to get them read every day, and the letters began to pile up.
“Shut your eyes and pick one for the prize,” suggested Mack. That was
like him.
“That wouldn’t be fair,” objected Miss Betty.
She went to Editor Nixon about it. He glanced around the office, a
worried pucker between his bushy brows. His eyes lighted upon Joan, who
was spending most of her time in the _Journal_ office these days, now
that Tommy was safely off her hands. (She had to watch for new
developments on the Dummy mystery.) Burke had hunted through the
envelopes for hers one pay day! The editor was now so accustomed to
seeing her around that now he practically gave her an assignment.
“Look here,” he waved his fat, blue pencil toward her. “Why can’t you
and the office pest read over these baseball fan letters?” He meant
Chub.
Wasn’t it lucky that English had always been Joan’s favorite and easiest
subject at school? She could judge the letters with a critical eye. Chub
wasn’t much use that way. He didn’t recognize bad grammar even when it
stared him in the face. But he was a big help, for he knew the baseball
stuff. “This one sounds good,” he’d say. “But it’s something he’s read
somewhere. He hasn’t thought it up himself.”
The _Journal_ was offering two prizes. The first was to be a check for
twenty-five dollars. Uncle John had offered it himself. The second prize
was two seats to the best baseball game of the season in Ohio, to be
played that year in Cleveland. Not only that, but the lucky winner would
be introduced to Babe Ruth and would be given a baseball autographed by
the famous player. The second prize, so every one thought, was about as
nice as the first prize, and was worth as much in actual money, for all
expenses were to be paid for the trip, the car fare, tickets, and so on,
having been donated. It was the kind of prize to fascinate a boy. And
yet, twenty-five dollars was a lot of money.
When the contest ended, Joan and Chub had narrowed the letters down to
two which were decidedly better than the rest. This afternoon’s paper
was to announce the prize winners. Mr. Nixon had handed the two best
letters back to Joan, with, “You might as well do it all. You decide
which one’s best. They both look good to me.”
Joan sighed again as she stared at the two letters before her. “I wish
one of the rules of the contest had been for the boys to use pen names,”
she said to herself. “Then I wouldn’t know who was who.”
She was sitting at the long, crowded table that stretched across the
middle of the editorial room; the desks were all around the windows and
walls. She had cleared a space on the table; it was here, every day for
the past weeks, she and Chub had read the letters written by the boy
readers of the _Journal_.
Joan realized she would have to make up her mind, now, for Tim, who was
writing up the announcement story, was looking over his typewriter at
her for the names. The two letters seemed almost equally good, but one
written by fifteen-year-old Eric Reynolds was slightly better than the
other one, which was signed, “Jimmy Kennedy, age thirteen.” Joan knew of
the Reynolds family—they lived in a big place, with a sunken garden and
a tall, iron fence all around. Too bad a rich boy like Eric had
submitted a letter. Well, she might give him the second prize—the trip
to the game and the autographed ball. He didn’t need the money, and from
Jimmy Kennedy’s address on South Washington Street, she knew that he
lived in one of the soot-streaked, gray-painted houses, which had their
back yards cut into triangles by the railroad running along there. Jimmy
ought to have the money prize. Yet his letter wasn’t quite as good as
Eric’s. But Eric was rich, and Jimmy was poor. Rich boy, poor boy! It
reminded her of
Rich man, poor man,
Beggarman, thief,
Doctor, lawyer,
Merchant, chief!
“Mark ’em ‘first’ and ‘second,’” Tim shouted. “I’m going to run the
whole letters, just as written.”
Joan patted Em before she decided. Em loved this table, too. Now, she
was curled upon a heap of papers from small surrounding towns that Miss
Betty clipped for social items, and was batting her topaz eyes, almost
asleep. Then, Joan bent over with the stub of blue pencil Mr. Nixon had
given her, and with quick decision, she wrote a Roman I on Jimmy’s
letter and a II on Eric’s.
There, she had done it! Mr. Nixon was standing by Tim’s typewriter,
waiting for the copy. It was the last bit, for the composing men were
ready to lock up the forms. “End that sentence,” he commanded Tim.
“We’re waiting on that story.” He vanished through the swinging door.
Joan continued to sit at the table. Things were always so hurried until
press time, and then the rush was over. She and Chub often worked
puzzles and tried writing headlines and doing all sorts of things at
this time of the day. Chub always had a new enthusiasm, and Joan found
most of them interesting. Somehow, the things boys did were always more
fun than what girls did. For awhile, Chub had been studying a book, _How
to Be a Detective_, and was always trying to make a mystery out of
everything. Dummy, of course, was a real mystery. No one could deny
that. Now, Chub had sent away for a book of magic.
[Illustration: “Mark ’em ‘first’ and ‘second’,” Tim shouted.]
To-day he came up to the long table, with an ink bottle in his hand. He
put it on the table and uncorked it. “It’s magic ink,” he informed her.
“I made it. The book showed how—out of different chemicals. It writes
just like any ink, but only lasts a day or so, and then it becomes
invisible. To get it back, you have to hold it over heat.”
He was about to demonstrate its powers when Em, suddenly awake, stood up
and patted her front paws at the bottle, sniffing and scratching.
“What ails her?” asked the office boy.
Joan wrinkled up her nose. “It’s that ink. It has a funny smell—she
hates some smells like gunpowder, but this is sort of like sassafras.
She likes it. She thinks it’s catnip, I guess.”
Em had succeeded in wetting one paw. Then she rolled over and over upon
the floor, rubbing her nose with her paws, her eyes beaming, purring
loudly all the while.
Mr. Nixon came out front again, and Chub, afraid of being pressed into
service, made an exit. Mr. Nixon called Miss Betty to his desk. Joan saw
her shake her head. Then he motioned to Joan, and she went over. “Wonder
if you could do something for me? I want a story about these two boys
who won the prizes. Miss Betty’s tied up with a church wedding, and
Tim’s busy, too. Think you could do it? Get their pictures, and find out
something about ’em. Your brother can write it up. You’ve got the
addresses. Get Burke to give you some petty cash for street car fares.”
“Oh, I’ll walk,” Joan told him. It was like asking for money to have
Burke dole out nickels and dimes when she wasn’t really on the pay roll.
Just being sent out like this was pay enough for her. She had some
change in her pocket, anyway. She dived into a phone booth to inform
Mother importantly that Mr. Nixon was sending her out. Mother would hate
to hear about the assignment, but Joan was thrilled. Of course, it
wasn’t a real assignment, for Tim would write it up, but she was really
helping him, now.
It was too far to walk. She boarded a red and yellow street car at the
corner, and went north on Market Street, past Mrs. McNulty’s. Joan
wished she had on the new flowered organdie Mother had made for her.
Still, the pleated tan silk skirt with sweater to match, a gay triangle
scarf around her shoulders and a jaunty béret on her head looked very
nice, indeed. This costume seemed more grown up than most of her
clothes. What if she had on the old plaid skirt and a middy! She got off
right in front of the Reynolds residence. Going places was always fun
till she got there. Then she was often seized by an attack of
bashfulness. Now, she walked up the bluestone path to the house and rang
the bell before she got panicky. The door was opened by a colored man in
a white coat. “Master Eric’s up in his room,” he said in reply to her
question. “Mrs. Reynolds is giving a party on the west porch. I’ll call
Master Eric.” He showed her into a living room as large as the editorial
room at the _Journal_. Joan’s dusty oxfords sank into the velvet of the
Chinese blue rug on the floor. There was a grand piano and on its
polished surface was Eric’s picture—an almost life-size of his head
only. Joan heard the voices of the guests on the porch, the clink of
china, and she smelled the food. A uniformed maid, bearing a tray of
dishes, entered from the sun porch.
Eric came down the stairs. He was a tall boy, with dark hair, slightly
wavy, that he tossed back from his forehead with a quick movement of his
head. He had dark eyes, and a nice smile, but he was rather pale. He was
shyly surprised when she informed him that he had won the second prize,
though he did not seem so pleased about it as she had expected. Was he
disappointed that he had not won first? He should have, but he did not
need the money. She knew he’d enjoy the big game, for he must like
baseball to have written such a splendid letter.
Eric’s mother, a tall woman with glasses on a gold chain—came in, too.
“I’m serving luncheon to my guests.” Her voice was cold and ungracious.
“But I suppose I can arrange to have Eloise serve you and your friend,
also, Eric.”
“Oh, no, thank you,” declined Joan. “I had my lunch long ago, and I have
another call to make. But I would like a picture of Eric.”
The boy seemed relieved that she was not going to stay. Mrs. Reynolds
hurried off. The maid came into the room again, with steam coming from
the tray.
“Won’t you have a cup of tea, Miss?” she asked Joan, holding out a cup,
and as Joan shook her head, she offered it to Eric.
“None for me, either.” He put out his hand to wave the cup away, and the
girl jerked the cup back, causing a few drops to fall on his hand.
Eric’s face got whiter than ever. He cradled his fingers in his other
hand. “My fingers!” he spoke as if in agony.
“Why, it couldn’t have hurt much,” Joan remarked.
“No, it didn’t,” he admitted, “but it might have.”
Afraid of getting hurt! What a sissy! And Joan had rather liked him
until then. She asked him a few questions for the paper, and left, with
the big photograph tucked under her arm.
The street car back to town carried her past the _Journal_ office. A few
blocks more and she was at Washington Street. Joan knew her Plainfield.
She realized that the first thing a reporter must do is to learn the
city. She studied maps and knew the names of all the streets and even
some of the alleys. She wanted to learn as much as she could, so that
she could soon be a real reporter.
Jimmy’s house was just like a dozen others on the street. The front of
it looked shut up, but when Joan knocked it was immediately answered by
a boy, who looked young for thirteen. “Are you Jimmy Kennedy?” she
asked. “I came to tell you that you won the first prize—”
“I ain’t Jimmy. I’m Johnny,” the boy interrupted. He turned and shouted
into the house at the top of his voice. “Hey! Everybody! Jimmy’s won the
first prize.”
Instantly, it seemed to Joan, boys of all ages appeared. There were only
five altogether, however, she found out when they quieted down and she
could count them. Jimmy was the oldest. Johnny, who had shouted the
news, was next. Then, there were Joe and Jeff, and little Jerry, the
four-year-old baby of the family. The boys’ mother appeared from the
kitchen, drying her hands on her apron. “For shame, you boys, not to ask
the newspaper lady in.” (She thinks I’m grown up! thought Joan.) “Come
in, my dear, and we’ll have some lemonade all around to celebrate. Sure,
it’s grand news that Jimmy will be getting a prize. That Jimmy, he’s
that crazy about baseball! He’s been wild to go to that game and get
that signed baseball.”
The mother seemed to have the prizes mixed, but Joan said nothing. How
glad the mother’d be to have him win the money. They all sat around the
oilcloth-covered table. Young Jerry squirmed into Joan’s lap. She
managed to drink her lemonade and eat the sugary cookies without
spilling any on his dark Dutch-cut hair or sailor suit. He had great,
blue eyes like all his brothers, and looked like “Sonny Boy” of movie
fame. Jimmy had more freckles than any of the others. He seemed bashful,
though jolly, but somehow not so elated over the prize as she had
thought he would be. But boys were funny that way. They never showed how
they really felt. Perhaps, after all, he was just embarrassed and a bit
bewildered to have won twenty-five dollars. She glanced around the
cluttered, shabby kitchen and was satisfied that she had decided right
about the prizes. They could buy something nice with the money, or put
it away for Jimmy’s education.
When Joan asked for a picture, Mrs. Kennedy set her glass down on the
table. “I declare, I don’t believe we’ve got a recent picture of Jimmy,”
she announced, sadly. “The latest one was taken when he was about ten,
Johnny’s age, in his surplice for the choir.” It showed a boy who looked
very much as Jimmy did now, except that he wore a Buster Brown collar.
“Don’t give it to her, Mom!” protested Jimmy. “Everybody’ll think I’m a
baby. Do they _have_ to have a picture?”
“The editor wants one,” Joan assured him. “There’s no time to get the
staff photographer to take one.” She did not say that the _Journal_
would probably not bother sending Lefty out to take a picture. He had
more important ones to take. Besides, it was always cheaper to borrow a
picture. “But I’m sure Lefty—that’s the photographer—can fix this up,”
she went on. “He can change the collar to the kind you’re wearing now.”
“Can he, honest?” Joe was all eyes. “By magic?”
Mrs. Kennedy took the picture out of the frame for Joan, and she left to
get back to the office. When the picture came out the next afternoon,
Jimmy Kennedy was wearing a grown-up collar and a four-in-hand tie,
instead of a Windsor. Joan had known Lefty could do anything. The big
picture of Eric and the smaller one of Jimmy were the same size in the
paper reproduction, and Jimmy’s looked just as nice as Eric’s, which had
been taken by the town’s best photographer.
Tim wrote up a dandy story, too, from the data Joan could give him.
“Gee, you saw enough to write a novel about it!” he said, as she reeled
off the number of lamps, candlesticks, and clocks that graced the
Reynolds home. “I’m glad it’s a boy story this time,” he smiled. “I sure
got tired of writing up babies!”
The _Journal_ sent the check to Jimmy and the game tickets to Eric. Joan
was in Uncle John’s office when he signed the check, for it was not an
ordinary check like the ones Burke made out for stamps and clean towels.
It was a special check and had to be signed by Uncle John himself, with
his odd, illegible scrawl, John W. Martin. He always made an
old-fashioned _M_. He had to hunt around for fresh ink, as the inkwell
on his desk was full of dry, black chunks. He found a bottle behind the
books on the desk and used that.
Both boys promptly wrote in with brief, polite notes of thanks. Joan
read them over when they were published in the _Journal_, each one a
bare stick (two inches of print). They seemed too short and too polite.
What was the trouble? They were not at all the frankly delighted, boyish
notes that you would have expected Eric and Jimmy to write.
Two days later, Gertie appeared in the little hallway between that
office and the editorial one. “A Jewish gentleman, very much out of
temper, is demanding to speak to Mr. Martin,” she announced. Then she
saw that Tim’s desk was vacant. “Isn’t the cub here?”
Joan looked up from the damp proof sheets of the society layout for
Sunday. She was helping Miss Betty and was pasting the typed captions
under the proper picture. She shook her head at Gertie, as she carefully
pressed down on a strip of copy paper, bearing the title, “To be Married
This Week.”
Gertie left, but reappeared in a flash. “Say, this gink won’t take no
for an answer. Madder’n a hornet. Says he wants to talk to some one who
knows something about those prizes the boys won.”
Joan forgot the brides and jumped up, grabbing a pad and pencil. She
started to the nearest phone booth, knowing that Gertie would switch the
call back to her. She clamped the head phones over her ears, and had her
hands free to make notes. A tumult of quick Jewish phrases sounded in
her ears. “Hey, you Mr. Martin, what you think this boy try pull trick
like this?”
“Who is it, please?”
“I tell you two, t’ree times. It’s Abie. You know me. I got Abie’s
Pawnshop on Main Street, near Spring.” His voice drifted away, as though
he were talking to some one else. “Well, all right, you talk, then, and
tell Mr. Martin come quick, or I have you put in jail.”
Another voice, surprisingly familiar, inquired whether she were Mr.
Martin.
“No, this is _Miss_ Martin,” Joan felt important, but puzzled over that
voice. “Can I help you?”
“This is Eric Reynolds,” came the answer. “Will you please have some one
from your office come over here and help me out. I’m in trouble.”