MRS. OGILVIE'S
LOCAL COLOR
MRS. OGILVIE'S LOCAL COLOR.
"THE trouble with my writing," said Mrs. Ogilvie, pensively, "is that it lacks local color."
She was leaning on Miss Herrick's desk in the city room, reading with much self-control a story of her own which had appeared in "The Searchlight" that morning. Not more than half of it had survived the ruthless blue pencil of Hunt, the copy-reader, whose muttered words as he had toiled over it the night before had not been prayers. In the interval between the rewriting of the last paragraph and the "building" of the "head" for the article, that gentleman had refreshed himself by confiding to a fellow-sufferer at the next desk a frank opinion of Mrs. Ogilvie's work which would have been of the greatest value to her if she had over heard it.
"All I have to do with it," he ended grimly as he lit a cigarette, "is to cut out eighteen pages from the beginning, twenty-two pages from the end, and rewrite the middle. If only she'd begin and end her stories in the middle it would be the salvation of us both!"
Unfortunately this admirable suggestion never reached the ears of the woman reporter who read her mutilated article the next morning and deplored, as usual, the lack of that local color which she was certain would have won the copy-reader's admiration and stopped his blue pencil in its impetuous descent. She propped her soft chin in the palms of her incompetent little hands and looked down at Miss Herrick rather doubtfully as she resumed her confidences.
"I sometimes think," she said wistfully, "that it's because I have n't had experience enough—I mean, I have n't lived enough and seen enough. The other newspaper women I know seem to have such dramatic lives. Interesting things are always happening to them. Nothing ever happens to me. I get little, unimportant assignments that don't count, though they make me work hard enough—and when I have finished I go home to John. We 're so far up in Harlem that it does n't seem worth while to come downtown in the evening to the theatre or anything of that kind, and so we stay at home—and I suppose we stagnate. My husband, you know, is not strong, and I have to be very careful of him. I don't regret our quiet life—we 're very happy. But I sometimes think I should go about more and broaden and develop my mind, for the sake of my work."
Her voice lingered fondly on the last two words. She was plainly fascinated by her brief newspaper experience, and Miss Herrick saw and marvelled over this, just as she had marvelled six months before when the ill-prepared novice had taken her first plunge into the journalistic whirlpool. Never had such a gay, inexperienced, unsophisticated little woman come into the office. Bets were freely offered that she would leave before the end of the week—an impression which the city editor fully shared until Thursday morning, when she had brought him a news "tip" that made him take his feet off his desk and show other signs of joyful professional interest. As the months passed, she had quietly taken her place as one of the most indefatigable workers on the staff,—alert, enthusiastic, and absolutely reliable. In the working up of a story she knew no such word as fail. She invariably secured her facts—and, having them, she set them forth in a fine, large hand and schoolgirl style which drew groans of anguish from her newspaper associates. There was not a touch of heart or sympathy in her work. As Herforth put it, "She handled the most tragic themes in a manner that was positively gay."
"She's a charming little woman," added Herforth, who was the "star" reporter and inclined to the analytic, "but, hang it all, I don't believe she has any soul. Nobody could have and write the stuff she turns out. If something would happen to shake her up a bit and knock into her some sense of what life is, I believe she'd develop wonderfully."
The others lounging around the city room laughed at his vehemence. They shared his liking for the "little woman," especially since they had learned of the invalid husband and of the quiet devotion with which she bore her share of the struggle for a livelihood.
"Look at her now," continued Herforth, his eyes resting on the slight figure by Miss Herrick's side. "Marbury has given her a Sunday special to do—that case of the old woman whose husband has just died and who's going to the almshouse Friday. It ought to be a great story—but she 'll spoil it. It won't be half so melancholy as our own comic supplement," he ended gloomily.
The unconscious object of his criticism was listening with much deference to some quiet suggestions by Miss Herrick as to the special story he had mentioned. "Try to put yourself in the old woman's place," the experienced newspaper woman ended. "Try to realize what it must be to her to face the world alone at eighty-five, with husband, home, children, friends all gone. Put some feeling into your work, my dear. Don't worry about the local color.
Mrs. Ogilvie took these final words out of the office with her and thought them over as she rode uptown in the Broadway car.
"It is n't that I lack sympathy," she mused, "but somehow I can't express it. Perhaps the world is n't really as bright and beautiful as it seems to me, but I don't see why I should go out of my way to discover that. The popular idea of 'experience' in the office is evidently to be broken on a wheel a few times. I don't believe my literary style would be improved by that. Besides, I'm horribly afraid of being sentimental or mawkish."
As the car was rounding "Dead Man's Curve," she heard the clang of an ambulance bell and saw a crowd gather thickly in front of one of the buildings in Fourteenth Street. Two large policemen were trying to make way for several white-faced men who were carrying a limp figure into an adjacent hall way. As the ambulance rattled up to the curb and the crowd parted, she saw the great safe which had crashed to the ground and the parted cable that told the story of the accident. She felt a pang of sympathy for the unconscious victim, followed by a sudden faintness as she realized what the tragedy might mean in some New York home. "Fancy what I should suffer if it were John," she breathed. This hypothetic plunge into such an abyss of despair made her soul shudder.
She was very busy all day. She had several assignments, one of which necessitated the interviewing of a great many persons. It was after seven in the evening when she returned to "The Searchlight" building and entered the city room. A hush seemed to fall on it as the little gray figure walked briskly toward the city editor's desk. It was Ruth Herrick, sick at heart over the task she had to perform, who intercepted her, and putting her arm around the other woman's shoulder, drew her into an adjoining room, beyond the gaze even of the sympathetic eyes that followed them.
"I have something to tell you, my dear girl—my dear girl," she began falteringly. She could not bear to meet the big blue eyes that were fastened on her face with a look of almost childish terror. "I have bad news for you—you must try to bear it as bravely as you can," she went on. "Your husband has been injured, and you must go to him at once. I will go with you. I have sent for a cab, and as we ride uptown I 'll tell you everything. We 've been trying to reach you all day long, but you have been going so constantly that we could not find you."
In after years Mrs. Ogilvie recalled every small detail of the ride on that cold December evening. It was snowing slightly, and the buildings they passed looked strangely unfamiliar through the white mist. The street sounds and the cries of the newsboys seemed to come to her ears from a great distance. She was dimly conscious of Miss Herrick's words. As one in a dream she listened to the story of the falling of the safe, the injury of her husband, and his removal to the hospital. The knowledge that she had ridden past his unconscious form, leaving him to be cared for by strangers, pierced her numbed consciousness like a knife. The horror of it shocked her into speech at last.
"Is he dead?" she asked, and then, as Miss Herrick tried to answer, the strained voice said from the darkness, "Never mind, I understand," and the two women rode on in silence.
There was nothing to do when they reached the hospital except to give instructions as to the disposition of what had been John Ogilvie, and this was done by two "Searchlight" men who had followed the newspaper women uptown. In their quiet, capable way, they assumed control of the practical end of the situation, while the doctors and the trained nurse who had been with the patient talked with the widow in the little reception-room.
Miss Herrick remained in the Harlem apartment that night and listened to the steady tramp of her neighbor's feet in the next room. Up and down, all night long, they made their weary journey. There was nothing to be done. The "little woman" was meeting and bearing her trouble in her own way, and she had temporarily entrenched herself behind a barrier which even the most sympathetic dared not try to break down. Three days later, she laid her dead away in the little churchyard of the quiet town where she and John had met and loved and married. And her associates, from "The Searchlight" office, who had gone there for the funeral, looked at the black-robed figure across the church and wondered if this dry-eyed woman with the stricken face were really the little birdlike creature who had fluttered about the office, the despair of the copy-readers and the subject of Herforth's prayers. They left her there, at her request, and a few loiterers, lingering long after the others, saw her crossing the churchyard through the falling darkness, with the old sexton by her side, their footsteps crackling on the crisp snow. He had carried her as a little girl, on his shoulder—and he obeyed her unquestioningly now. He opened the door of the vault in which her husband had been temporarily placed, and left her there alone. When he returned, an hour later, she was still there—a crushed, desolate figure with its head upon its knees. It was very dark in the vault, but through the open door one could see the heartless sparkle of the cold stars. She rose to her feet as he entered and grasped him by the arm.
"I must see him once more," she cried. "I will see him just once more and then I 'll go away. I promise you. Only bring a light and let me see him as I say good-by."
The old man obeyed her dumbly. Groping in his pockets he found a match and held it up to her. "It's the only one," he said. "If I light it will you come away with me as soon as it goes out?"
"I promise," she said dully. He lit the match, and its yellow light flared up, illuminating the gray walls of the vault and its contents. She threw her arms over the casket in which her husband's body lay, and pressed her face against the glass that divided them, her eyes strained widely in this last look. The sleeping face beneath the glass looked very calm and peaceful. She saw it fall into shadow as the match burned down and left them in the gloom.
She groped her way out into the brilliant night, the old man tottering by her side. He did not speak to her, but he went with her through the cemetery and to the village streets, along which belated citizens were hurrying. The little shops they passed were ablaze with lights, and through the drawn shades of some of the houses she could see the bright warm rooms, happy children, and holiday decorations and trees. In the streets were the jingle of sleigh-bells and the sound of merry voices raised in Christmas greeting.
The old sexton took her to the hotel where she was staying and left her at the door of her room. He was glad to see that there was a bright fire burning in it, and that the lamps were lit and the atmosphere was warm and cosey. He did not know that after he had gone she turned out the lights and knelt down by the window with her forehead against the cool pane, her eyes seeing only the gleam of eloquent tombstones standing thickly in the Christmas snow of the cemetery where John and her heart were buried. It would not have especially interested him if he had known. Unlike Mrs. Ogilvie, the sexton was used to grief.
The city editor had received a little note from Mrs. Ogilvie, begging him to let her work on without interruption, "for work," she ended, "will be my only refuge now." He had sent her several assignments with journalistic promptness, and with a letter full of almost human sympathy. He thought of her suddenly one evening as he looked at the head of her arch-enemy, Hunt, the copy-reader, bent over a story of hers which he had given him to rewrite. "We want good stuff out of this," he had said, without glancing it over; "whip it into shape, old man, and make the very best of it. There should be a lot of human interest and pathos in it."
He noticed that Hunt had dropped his blue pencil and was leaning back in his chair reading the copy with a peculiar expression on his tired young face. He glanced up at the city editor as the latter stopped by his desk, and said slowly:—
"Rewrite this story? I guess not. It's one of the best things I 've ever handled. It's got all the local color there is. It's got a tear in every line of it—and, by Jove, it's written by Mrs. Ogilvie!"
"What did I tell you?" said Herforth, who had come up and was listening to the conversation. He took several pages of the copy from Hunt's unresisting hand, and glanced over them, his lips puckering for a whistle as he read. His comment, as he handed them back, defined the situation tersely, and in a way established Mrs. Ogilvie's status in the office.
"That is n't local color," he said firmly; "that's soul!"