The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-12-23

I've got it The young mans eyes
flashed with excitement. His manner
| of diffidence and reticence had van
1shed. Get the paper and write what
1 tell you. We can do the polishing
later. You can show me how to do
that"
Every morning Betty Brown and her
farmer sat under the apple tree. Some
days the farmer would be all anima-
ton, all ideas, as he had been the day
they began. Other days he would be
dull and discouraged. He would be
in a murderous frame of mind, when
he wished to go back over the fabric
of the story and weed out the charac-
ters he had created. Then Betty
would be at her best, Then she would
take the thread of the story where
the man had left off, adding touches
here and there and bringing order and
FEASIBILITY out of the chaos in which
the man had left the tale
1t was small wonder that Betty and
the farmer man, sitting day after day
in the shade of the solitary apple
tree, working together over the thing
in all the world that interested them
most, dreaming and planning together,
and cropping away to bring to q real
izatfon their dearest dream-it was
small wonder that Betty, who was
very pretty in spite of the fact that
she wore prince-nez and had ambi-
lions, and Tom Fem, who in spite of
his overalls and his swarthy skin pos
and a deal of rugged charm, should
have got to the point where the dear
est treasure in life seemed to be the
enjoyment of each others society.
But how shall we manage Betty
asked one day after the usual pre-
iminaries-always more or less the
same and yet always a little different
from anything else since the world
began-"how shall we manage? I'd
share your life with you anywhere,
Tom, but 1 would be too much of a
burden-at present. If you had a lit
tie farm of your own it might be diff
ferent"
I'VE can buy farm with the money
we get from the story
Betty explained how hopeless it was
to expect a sale from their first story
or to expect, even If it were sold,
enough to make a first payment on a
farm Toms optimism would permit
no doubling. And so it was agreed
that II the story were sold, even at
very low figure, Betty would consent
to wed the farmer man and trust to
good fortune for the rest.
So the story was finished and Betty
typed it on her little portable machine
at the farmhouse and, handing the
precious manuscript to Tom to carry
to the postoffice she resigned her lot
to the decision of the publishers read
ers- And Betty knew by experience
that when publishers return manu-
script they are not very prompt.
But within ten days Tom flourished
an envelope from the publishers glee- |
fully before Betty's face as they sat at /
the old trysting place under the ap- I
pie tree.
You see, had the audacity to open /
the manuscript before 1 posted ii and /
slip in little note for myself. That's I
why they sent it to me instead of to f
you" But Betty was reading:
In our opinion, it is quite the best /
thing you have done. You have got /
more of the real smack of the soil,
more of real flesh and blood, into this
than ever before. 1t is just what was
needed to make your stories as sue
cessful with the average reader as they
already are with the critical. Please
accept our humble congratulations"
Then, as Betty'S eyes dropped to the
lower left-hand side of the page, she
read the name that told the story
Mr.. Ridgeway Norris
'They are right, too, dead right !
he man in farmers garb was saying !
What you said about my other stuff
being hard to understand was right
That's why I left the crowd and got
nto these jeans and followed the pillow
But that wouldn't have helped at all.
learest little collaboration in all the
world. What I wanted was real
'1esh-and- blood woman to show me
he way. And We'll sign the book
Betty and Ridgeway Norris Copy
light, 1915. by the Mcclure Newspa-
Der Syndicate.)
Don't you find 1t rather lonely since
Four boy Josh went back to school 2
Yes replied Farmer CorntosSel: "but {