CHAPTER 1 HELP WANTED

“The situation is getting worse instead of better, Penny. Three of our reporters are sick, and we’re trying to run the paper with only a third of our normal editorial staff.” Anthony Parker, publisher of the Riverview Star, whirled around in the swivel chair to face his daughter who sat opposite him in the private office of the newspaper. “Frankly, I’m up against it,” he added gloomily.

Penny, a slim girl with deep, intelligent blue eyes, uncurled herself from the window ledge. Carefully, she dusted her brown wool skirt which had picked up a cobweb and streaks of dirt.

“You could use a janitor around here too,” she hinted teasingly. “How about hiring me?”

“As queen of the dustmop brigade?”

“As a reporter,” Penny corrected. “I’m serious, Dad. You’re desperate for employes. I’m desperate for spending money. I have three weeks school vacation coming up, so why not strike a bargain?”

“The paper needs experienced workers, Penny.”

“Precisely.”

“You’re a very good writer,” Mr. Parker admitted. “In fact, in months past you turned in some of the best feature stories the Star ever printed. But always they were special assignments. We must have a reporter who can work a daily, eight-hour grind and be depended upon to handle routine stories with speed, accuracy and efficiency.”

“And you think I am not what the doctor ordered?”

“I think,” corrected Mr. Parker, “that you would blow your pretty little top by the end of the second day. For instance, it’s not easy nor pleasant to write obituaries. Yet it must be done, and accurately. On this paper, a new reporter is expected to do rewrites and other tedious work. You wouldn’t like it, Penny.”

“I’d take it neatly in my stride, Dad. Why not try me and see?”

Mr. Parker shook his head and began to read the three-star edition of the paper, its ink still damp from the press.

“Give me one sound, logical reason for turning me down,” Penny persisted.

“Very well. You are my daughter. Our editors might feel that they were compelled to treat you with special consideration—give you the best assignments—handle you with kid gloves.”

“You could take care of that matter easily enough.”

“If they took my instructions seriously, you might not like it,” the newspaper owner warned. “A reporter learns hard and bitter lessons. Mr. DeWitt, for instance, is a fine editor—our best, but he has a temper and—”

The frosted glass door swung open and an elderly, slightly bald man in shirt sleeves slouched in. Seeing Penny, he would have retreated, had not Mr. Parker called him back.

“What’s on your mind, DeWitt?”

“Trouble,” growled the editor. “That no-good, addle-brained boy we hired as night police reporter, just blew up! Said it was too confining to sit in a police station all night waiting for something to happen! So he gets himself a job in a canning factory! Now we’re another employee short.”

“Dad, let me take over the night police job!” Penny pleaded.

Both her father and Mr. DeWitt smiled as if suffering from intense pain. “Penny,” Mr. Parker explained gently. “Night police work isn’t suitable for a girl. Furthermore, it is one of the most undesirable jobs on a paper.”

“But I want to work somewhere, and you’re so stubborn!”

Mr. DeWitt studied Penny with concentrated interest. Hope flickered in his eyes. Turning abruptly to Mr. Parker he asked: “Why not, Chief? We could use her on the desk for rewrite. We’re mighty hard up, and that’s a fact.”

“What about the personnel problem?” Mr. Parker frowned. “How would the staff take it?”

“Some of the reporters might not like it,” Mr. DeWitt admitted, “but who’s running this paper anyhow?”

“I often wonder,” sighed Mr. Parker.

Detecting signs of a weakening, Penny appealed to Mr. DeWitt. “Wouldn’t I be a help to you if I were on the staff?” she urged.

“Why, sure,” he agreed cautiously.

“There, you see, Dad! Mr. DeWitt wants me!”

“Penny, it’s a personnel problem,” her father explained with growing impatience. “The other reporters might not consider you a welcome addition to the staff. You would expect favors.”

“I never would!”

“We need her,” said Mr. DeWitt significantly. “We really do.”

With two against him, Mr. Parker suddenly gave in.

“All right,” he agreed. “Penny, we’ll put you on as a cub reporter. That means you’ll start as a beginner with a beginner’s salary and do routine work until you’ve proved your merit. You’ll expect no special consideration. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly!” Grinning from ear to ear, Penny would have agreed to anything.

“Furthermore, if the work gets you down, I won’t have you coming to me asking for a change.”

“I’ll never darken your office door, Dad. Just one question. How much money does a beginner get?”

“Twenty-five dollars.”

Penny’s face was a blank.

“It will be more than you are worth the first few weeks,” Mr. Parker said.

“I’ll take it,” Penny declared hastily. “When do I start?”

“Right now,” decided her father. “DeWitt, introduce her to the staff, and put her to work.”

Feeling highly elated but a trifle self-conscious, Penny followed Editor DeWitt past the photography studio and the A.P. wire room to the main newsroom where reporters were tapping at their typewriters.

“Gang,” said Mr. DeWitt in an all inclusive introduction. “This is Penny Parker. She’ll be working here for a few weeks.”

Heads lifted and appraising eyes focused upon her. Nearly everyone nodded and smiled, but one girl who sat at the far end of a long typewriter table regarded her with an intent, almost hostile stare. And as luck would have it, Mr. DeWitt assigned Penny to the typewriter adjoining hers.

“This is Elda Hunt,” he introduced her. “Show Penny the ropes, will you?”

The girl, a blonde, with heavily-rouged cheeks, patted the rigid rolls of her hair into place. Staring at Mr. DeWitt, she answered not a word.

“I’ll have a lot to learn,” Penny said, trying to make friendly conversation.

Elda shrugged. “You’re the publisher’s daughter, aren’t you?” she inquired.

“Yes.”

“Then I don’t think you’ll have too hard a time,” the girl drawled.

Penny started to reply, but thought better of it. Seating herself beside Elda, she unhooded the typewriter, rolled a sheet of copy paper into it, and experimented with the keys.

The main newsroom was a confusion of sound. Although work was being handled with dispatch, there was an air of tension, for press time on the five-star edition was drawing close. Telephones were ringing, and Editor DeWitt, who sat at the head of the big rectangular desk, tersely assigned reporters to take the incoming calls. Not far from Penny’s ear, the police shortwave radio blared. Copy boys ran to and fro.

Benny Jewell, the assistant editor, tossed her a handful of typewritten sheets.

“Take these handouts and make ’em into shorts,” he instructed briefly.

“Handouts?” Penny asked in bewilderment. “Shorts?”

“Cut the stories to a paragraph or two each.”

“Oh,” said Penny, catching on. “You want me to rewrite them.”

At her elbow, Elda openly snickered.

Color stained Penny’s cheeks, but she quietly read the first sheet, which was an account of a meeting to be held the following week. Picking out the most important facts, she boiled the story down to two short paragraphs, and dropped the finished copy into the editor’s wire basket.

Only then did Elda speak. “You’re supposed to make two carbons of every story you write,” she said pityingly.

The girl might have told her sooner, Penny thought. However, she thanked her politely, and finding carbon paper, rewrote the story. In her nervousness she inserted one of the carbons upside down, ruining the impression. As she removed the sheets from the machine, she saw what she had done. Elda saw too, and smiled in a superior way.

“She dislikes me intensely,” Penny thought. “I wonder why? I’ve not done a thing to her.”

Aware that she had wasted paper and valuable time, Penny recopied the story a third time and turned it in to the editor. After that, she rewrote the additional stories with fairly good speed. By watching other reporters she learned that the carbon copies were speared on spindles which at intervals a copy boy collected and carried away.

A telephone rang, and this time, Mr. DeWitt, looking straight at Penny, said: “An obituary. Will you take it?”

She went to the phone and copied down the facts carefully, knowing that while death notices were routine, they were of vital interest to readers of the paper. Any mistake of fact could prove serious.

Returning to her typewriter, she wrote the item. But after she had turned it in, Mr. DeWitt called her to his desk. He was pleasant but firm.

“What day are services to be held?” he asked. “Who are the survivors? Where did the woman die? Furthermore, we never use the word ‘Funeral Home’. Instead, we say ‘mortuary’.”

Penny telephoned for more information, and finally after rewriting the notice twice more, succeeded in getting it past Mr. DeWitt. But as he tossed the story to a copy reader, she saw that he had pencilled several changes.

“There’s more to writing routine stories than I thought,” she reflected. “I’ll really have to dig in unless I want to disgrace Dad.”

Penny was given another obituary to write which proved nearly as difficult as the first. Hopelessly discouraged, she started for the rest room to get a drink and wash her hands.

As she entered the lounge, voices reached her ears, and instantly she realized that Elda Hunt was talking to another girl reporter about her.

“The publisher’s daughter!” she heard her say scathingly. “As if we aren’t having a hard enough time here, without having to coddle her along!”

“I didn’t think she seemed so bad,” the other replied. “She’ll catch on.”

“She’ll be promoted over all our heads if that’s what you mean!” Elda retorted bitterly. “I know for a fact, she’s starting at fifty a week, and no experience! If you ask me, it’s unfair! We should walk out of here, and see how those fine editors would like that!”