Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1922-12-29
The Society
Editor
Copyright, 1922. by the Macmillan Co.

WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE

THEY say that in the newspaper
ofhces of the city men work In
n ruts; that the editorial writer
never reports an item, no matter how
much he knows of it: that a repoter |.
not allowed to express an editorial
view of a subject, ever though he be
well qualified to speak: but on orr
little country daily newspaper it is
entirely different. We work on the
interchangeable point system. Every
one writes items, all of US get adver-
Using and job-work when it comes our
way, and when one of US writes any
thing particularly good, it is marked
for the editorial page. The religious
reporter does the racing matinee in
Wildwood park, and the financial ed.
itor, who gets the market reports from
the feed-store men, also gets any
church news that comes along.
The only time we ever established
a department was when we made Miss
Larrabee society editor. She came
from the high school, where her grad
uating essay on Kipling attracted our
attention, and, after an Office council
had decided that a Saturday society
page would be a paying proposition.
At first, for six months after she
came to the office, Miss Larrabee de-
voted herself to the accumulation of
professional pride. This pride was as
much a part of her life as her pompa-
dour, which at that time was so high
that she had to tiptoe to reach it.
However she managed to keep it up
was the wonder of the office. Finally.
we all agreed that she must use
c~hicken-fence. She denied this, but
was inclined to be good-natured about
it, and, as an office joke, the boys
used to leave a step-ladder by her desk
so that she could climb up and see
how her tOp-knot really looked. Moth
ing ruffled her spirits, and we soon
quit teasing her and began to admire
her work. In addition to filing six
columns of the Saturdays paper with
her society report in a town where a
church social is important enough to
justify publishing the anne of those
who wait on the tables, Miss Larrabee
was a credit to the Office.
She was always invited to the enter
tainments at the homes of the Worth
ingtons and the Conklins, who had
stationary washtubs in the easements
of their houses and who ate dinner
fne%0ol re crrrNo- ~, tIN or1pfpr. md
when she put on what the boys called
her trOtting harness, her silk petticOats
rustled louder than any others at the
party. One day she suddenly dropped
her pompadour and appeared with her
hair parted in the middle and doused
owe her ears in long, undulating bill
lows. No other girl in town came
within a quarter of an inch of Miss
Larrabee's dare. When straight fronts
became stylish, Miss Larrabee was a
vertical marvel, and when she rolled
up her sleeves and organized a country
club, she referred to her shoes as boots
and took the longest steps in town.
But with it all she was no mere
clothes-horse. We drilled it into her
head during her first two weeks that
society news in a country town
means not merely the doings of the
cut-glass set, but that it means as well
the doings of the Happy Hoppers, the
Trundle-Bed Trash, the Knights of Co
lumbus, the Rathbone Sisters, the
Kings Daughters, the Epworth league,
the Christian Endeavorers, the Wo-
mans Relief corps, the Ladies' Aid n
the Home Missionary societies, Miss
Nelson's Dancing class, the Switch
mems Annual ball-if we get their
tob-work-and every kindred, every
tribe, except such as gather In what
Is known as Kitchen sweats" and oc-
casionally send in call for the police.
When Miss Larrabee got this into her
head she began to groan under her
burden, and by the end of the year,
though she had great pride in her
profession, she affected to loathe her
department.
Weddings were her especial abomi-
nations. When the first social loud
appeared on the horizon indicating the
approach of a series Of showers for the
bride which would eliminate in a
cloudburst at some stone church, MISS
Larrabee would begin to rumble lie
distant thunder and, as the storm grew
thicker, she would flash out crooked
misunderstanding imprecation on the
heads of the young people, their faith
ers and mother and uncles and aunts.
By the day of the wedding she wouid
be rolling a steady diapason of polite
decolorized, e%xpurgated, ladylike pro
family.
While she sat at her desk writing
the ~stereotyped account of the event.
1t was like picking up a live wire 10
speak to her. AS she wrote, we coula
tell at just what stage she had arrived
in her copy. Thus, if she said to the
adjacent atmosphere, What a wnop-
we knew that she had written