Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-09-30
Gily Short Story
Letters Of William Patterson

want an assistant who can do a
job not only well but quickly"
"Golly. It's the seventh now"
Bill said. ut means air mall
special delivery and we've got Co
get n onto the I o'clock train
out of the village"
Easy does st." Sally said
"I'l have the canoe ready and
waiting, and Wen make her
hump. Write like you Talk, Bill,
and you'll be all right"
Bill disliked the idea OF writing
on any terms He wrote three
more sentences to his mother,
added Your devoted son, Bill,
and reached for more paper.
swell letter. Sally said,
when she had read il, and Bill
looked pleased out of the middle
Of the guandary he was in about
the other one
He was scowling in dead earnest
now and digging hard into himself
for something 10 say that sounded
natural and intelligent. He liked
doing things. not talking about
them. with tongue or pen
That's why he wanted the Job
with Mr.. Endicott. stanton
Endicott did things. Any kind of
things he took a notion TO tackle.
Some people said he WAS a
genius, Bill Patterson thought he
was. He had made a great deal
of money. and taken care of il.
He liked doing new things.
The assistant he was going TO
employ would have the various,
lively and endlessfy interesting
job OF helping him get them
started. After they were on their
way, Mr.. Endicott turned them
over TO somebody else.
Usually they were things he had
invented. Sometimes they were
little money-makers that he
started out by manufacturing a
dozen or so of at a time until
some jobber got interested on a
wholesale basis.
He had all kinds Of people
come in and do the dull routine
parts-people that he hired by the
Iday-but what he wanted now
was an energetic, quick-minded
young man who might even, one
of these days turn into partner
WANTS THAT JOB
Bill Patterson would rather be
that young man than anything he
could think of. He agonized over
his letter.
II was cool up there in Maine
and Bill was in a bathing suit, but
the sweat stood out on his fur
rowed brow.
PUT as much Of yourself into
IL as you can" How in heck
could a fellow do that, at two
minutes notice?
Sally wond ered too. She
watched Bill anxiously She
trusted him with the peculiar con-
f1dence that had grown out OF
their relationships little boy
big girl to big boy, baby girl tc
baby boy, little girl young woman
TO young man-with never a let.
down anywhere along the line.
If Bill had told her he was going
to do anything anything whatso-
ever-she would have believed
him. But she had thought that
Bill couldn't write good letter.
She would have known darned
well that he wouldn't have said
he could. She was genuinely
amazed and delighted at the ex-
cellence Of his letter to his
mother. She regarded it as
thoroughly uncharacteristic.
She thought that only the
emotional Importance of the SUBJ
ject matter would have moved
him 10 such eloquence.
There was clock in the
middle of the boathouse gable and
Sally watched il and got more and
more and more nervous as Bill
wrote down things and discarded
them. He had little pile beside
him now of crumpled-up paper.
And time went marching on.
There wasn't any road along that
side of the lake and the only way
TO get to the village was by canoe.
There wasn't motor boat any
where on the length OF that fair
blue body of water; the camp
owners around its edges had COM
bined TO keep them out.
Bill had better hurry Sally
thought anxiously, but she forbore
TO say so. You never had TO re-
mind Bill of things like that.
If Mr.. Endicott had put him to
any test in the world except a
writing one
Bills final achievement, 1900
words long, was a disappointment