Boston Glass Ceiling: The Letters of Agnes Edwards Partin, 1922–1925

By Archway Publishing

There was no doubt that Agnes Edwards had ambition. It stemmed from the self-confidence she had gained during her university years and from being in the first generation of women to vote. Her professors at the University of CaliforniaBerkeley had encouraged her to pursue a career in publishing or teaching. Whats more, she knew she could support herself with her secretarial skills and job experience. So it was, in the fall of 1922, that Agnes left her home in California and journeyed to Boston.

Through three hundred letters, she tells the story of her ambition to become an editor and writer at Bostons prestigious Atlantic Monthly Press, along with the challenges she faced in finding her way in the male-dominated field of book publishing. Both triumphs and disappointments awaited her in the city, as well as an unexpected romance. Going abroad in 1925, she interviewed several authors, including A. A. Milne, creator of Winnie the Pooh.

An entertaining record of one womans life through the early- to mid-1920s, Boston Glass Ceiling provides a personal and detailed glimpse into Boston at that time and offers keen insight into the publishing world from a womans perspective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: May 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781480805774

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 Grace E. Moremen, Editor.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

1-(888)-242-5904

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-0576-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-0577-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014905346

Archway Publishing rev. date: 05/05/2014

Contents

Acknowledgments

Editor’s Preface

List of Illustrations

Characters Mentioned in the Letters

Foreword

Chapter 1 I’ve Aimed High

Chapter 2 Not a Secretary Much Longer

Chapter 3 The Promise

Chapter 4 Do I Need Another Year Here?

Chapter 5 The Glass Ceiling

Chapter 6 Love isn’t enough to fill my life

Conclusion

Epilogue: The Momentous Summer of 1925

Appendix: Selected Writings by Agnes Edwards

To the memory of Agnes’s colleagues in Boston who encouraged her to reach for the stars

Acknowledgments

252426.png

I gratefully acknowledge the following persons, without whom I could not have completed this seven-year project: my cousin, Juelle Partin, for her generous bequest that helped cover expenses; Philip Herrera, for beautiful office space; J. R. K. Kantor, for writing the introduction, for his appreciation of the letters, and for countless points of information; Connie Kimos, for careful proofreading; Jacqueline Chase, Beth Sibley, and Janet Vandevender, for their gracious endorsements of the letters; William Curry, Emma Gliessman, and the editorial and production staff at Archway Publishing, for encouragement and help in bringing the book to press; Claremont Photo and Video, for transferring photographs to disk; and William Moremen, my husband, for his help with innumerable technical problems and for his unfailing patience, love, and support.

Editor’s Preface

252429.png

Henry James once wrote, In writing to my relatives, I ransack my memory for every adventure that has befallen me and turn my pockets inside out, so that they receive, and possibly propagate, an exaggerated impression of my social career.¹

This quotation must have caught Agnes’s eye because it was found in a clipping among her papers. It very likely amused her and may have reminded her of her own letters home, as she looked for ways to inform and entertain her family.

From 1922 to 1925 Agnes was living in Boston. A recent graduate of UC Berkeley (Phi Beta Kappa, with Highest Honors in English), she had gone east to seek a career in writing and editing. Agnes had an especially close relationship to her mother, and she addressed over three hundred letters to her during those years. The city of Boston, replete with universities, bookstores, and publishing houses, could not have been a greater contrast to her parents’ tiny agricultural community of Westmorland, California, located on the desert , 250 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Joe and Nellie Edwards, pioneers all their lives, had been able to attend only grammar school; Agnes was the first of her family to go to college.

Agnes was my mother. Central to her life was her sense of self-affirmation. Born January 24, 1899, she had turned twenty-one in time to vote in the historic election of 1920. Having the vote was symbolic to her that she was as good as any man in her worth and abilities. In Boston this sense helped empower her to dare to aspire to an editorship in literary book publishing, a field very much dominated by men at the Atlantic Monthly Press. It did not take her very long to bump into barriers both obvious and subtle. The term glass ceiling had not yet been invented, but its presence was a reality that Agnes experienced.

Over the years, I didn’t hear her speak much about the gender bias that she had run into at the Atlantic. In fact, when I asked her once, What was the happiest period of your life? she answered, I suppose it was my three years in Boston. She loved her work, and also, unexpectedly, she fell in love and became engaged.

In the summer of 1925, Agnes journeyed to Georgia to meet her future in-laws, who opened their hearts to her with true southern hospitality. Then she was off to Great Britain and Europe, fulfilling a long-held dream. While in London, she interviewed the writer A. A. Milne and met Christopher Robin and his bear—always a treasured story in our household.

Agnes Edwards and Leo Partin were wed in Los Angeles in 1926. She then established her literary agency, becoming one of the first women in Los Angeles to do so. In the fall of 1928, she was recruited in an emergency to teach Freshman English at UCLA—an emergency that lasted for the next eleven years. She was a student at UCLA as well, earning both an MA and a doctorate there. Later she enjoyed seventeen years as a teacher and academic counselor at Los Angeles City College.

Agnes and Leo’s marriage was a happy one, lasting over sixty years.² Two children were born to them: my brother Robert, in 1927, and I, Grace Ellen, in 1930. As a full-time teacher, Agnes became a working mother, juggling a two-career household in the days when that was the exception. Any creative writing necessarily took a backseat.³ Leo worked as a civil engineer for Los Angeles County, first in storm drains and then in industrial waste disposal; he retired as division head. The family used to kid him about his subscription to the Sewage Works Journal, a copy of which occasionally rested on the coffee table next to Agnes’s copies of the Atlantic Monthly.

Agnes’s letters to her mother continued until her mother’s death in 1962, the total numbering close to one thousand.

It is over ninety years since Agnes wrote from Boston, but she has helped the transcriber by using a dark ink that, like her story itself, has stood the test of time remarkably well.

Grace E. Moremen

Claremont, California

November 16, 2013

List of Illustrations

252434.png

All the illustrations are from Agnes’s photo album, with the exception of the two envelopes.

Frontispiece: Agnes Edwards, age twenty-four, near Boston, February 1923

1. Agnes Edwards, San Jacinto Mountains, CA, February 1922

2. Ernest Edwards, Agnes’s brother, San Jacinto Mountains, February 1922

3. Agnes and her Scottish-born aunt Agnes McAlister, Louisville, KY, September 1922

4. Nellie Edwards, Agnes’s mother, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, September 1922

5. Special Delivery letter from the Atlantic Monthly Press offering Agnes a job, September 1922

6. One of the hundreds of letters that Agnes addressed to her mother from Boston

7. The Atlantic Monthly Press, 8 Arlington Street, Boston, MA, January 1923

8. Ice skating in the Public Garden, Boston, January 1923

9. Agnes at 78 St. Stephen Street, Boston, spring 1923

10. Agnes under cherry blossoms, New Haven, CT, April 1923

11. Bessie Nelson, New Haven, CT, April 1923

12. Agnes Edwards and Sydnie Towle, Marblehead, MA, June 1923

13. Cambridge housemates, May 1924, picture taken at Marshfield, MA

14. Agnes, East Dennis, Cape Cod, MA, summer 1924

15. Ruth Roberts, East Dennis, Cape Cod, MA, summer 1924

16. Professor Guy and Grace Montgomery, Greenfield, MA, summer 1924

17. Friends from the Atlantic Monthly Press, Salem Willows, MA, fall 1924

18. Finley Laverty, Agnes, and Leo Partin, Cambridge, MA, March 1925

19. Finley, May Laudenslager, and Leo, Cambridge, MA, March 1925

20. Leo Partin, MIT graduation, June 1925

21. Agnes, St. Mark’s Square, Venice, Italy, summer 1925

22. Caroline Rustin Partin and George R. Partin, Leo’s parents, Georgia, circa 1928

23. Edith Partin, Leo’s sister, Georgia, circa 1928

24. Eunice Partin, Leo’s sister, Georgia, circa 1928

25. Leo Partin and his brother, Lloyd, Los Angeles, California, 1930

26. J. W. Edwards, Agnes’s father, and Ernest Edwards, Westmorland, CA, October 1924

27. Grace Edwards Foulk, Agnes’s sister, and Luella Edwards, her sister-in-law, Westmorland, CA, October 1924

28. Agnes’s parents’ home, Westmorland, CA, October 1924

29. Agnes, age twenty six, and her mother, Westmorland, CA, November 1925

Back cover: Grace E. Moremen (Agnes’s and Leo’s daughter, and editor of the letters), 78 St. Stephen Street, Boston, June 2008, eighty-five years after Agnes lived there

Characters Mentioned in the Letters

252575.png

Agnes’s Family

Edwards, Mary Helen (Nellie), Agnes’s mother, to whom the letters were addressed, Westmorland, CA

Edwards, Josiah William (Joe), Agnes’s father, Westmorland

Edwards, Ernest, Agnes’s brother (eight years older), Westmorland

Edwards, Luella, Ernest’s wife, Westmorland

Edwards, Archie, Agnes’s brother (ten years older), Centralia, WA

Edwards, Mabel, Archie’s wife, Centralia

Edwards, Hazel, Helen, and Mable-Grace, children of the above⁴

Foulk, Grace (Edwards), Agnes’s sister, San Fernando, CA

Foulk, Clarence, husband of Grace, San Fernando

Foulk, Mrs., Clarence’s mother, Los Angeles

McAlister, Agnes, maternal aunt, Louisville, KY

McAlister, Will and Julia, maternal uncle and aunt, Elma, WA

Ball, Minna, paternal cousin, Portland, OR

Swain, Frank, paternal cousin, Los Angeles

McAlister, Ronald, Agnes’s maternal great-grandfather (deceased), lived in Scotland

Lorimer, Marjory McAlister (deceased), daughter of Ronald, lived in Scotland

Leo’s Family

Partin, Caroline Rustin, Leo’s mother, Georgia

Partin, the Rev. George Robert, Leo’s father, Georgia

Partin, Edith, Leo’s sister (nine years younger) , Georgia

Partin, Eunice, Leo’s sister (eleven years younger), Georgia

Partin, Lloyd, Leo’s brother, in the US Navy when Agnes met him

Alpha Gamma Delta Sisters

Dodge, Grace (Allen), friend from Imperial Valley and UC Berkeley

Flanley, Mabel, graduate of the University of Washington, now in Boston

Hausman, Mildred, Agnes’s roommate at the St. Stephen Street sorority house

Laudenslager, May, from Ohio, a student at Wellesley College when Agnes met her

Nelson, Bessie, Agnes’s closest friend at UC Berkeley, New Haven, CT 1922–1923

Other Close Friends from Berkeley Days

Graves, Aubrey, New York City

Montgomery, Mr. Guy and Mrs. Grace, Berkeley

Smith, Hazel, New York City

Women’s Educational and Industrial Union

Jackson, Miss, executive

Wood, Greta, book room staff, also a writer

Women Most Frequently Mentioned at 78 St. Stephen Street

Milman, Fannie, landlady

Towle, Sydnie, friend and companion for day trips and concerts

Young, Elizabeth, friend and companion at concerts

Young, Laura, sister of Elizabeth (does not live at St. Stephen Street house)

Margaret, cousin of Sydnie (does not live at St. Stephen Street house)

Atlantic Monthly (magazine)

Putnam, Mr., assistant editor

Walker, Charles Rumford, assistant editor

Weeks, Edward, assistant editor, replaced Mr.Walker. He will have a long, distinguished tenure at the Atlantic Monthly.

Atlantic Monthly Press (AMP)

Aldrich, Suzanne, clerk, Agnes’s close friend

Bakeless, Mr., editor of the Living Age magazine, published by the AMP

Church, Caroline (Churchie), advertising department

Clark, Constance, secretary, House Beautiful magazine, published by the AMP

Condon, Randall J., editor, Agnes’s boss, 1924–1925

Converse, Florence, editorial assistant to Mr. Sedgwick

Berkefeld, Marie, secretary to Mr. Sedgwick

Emery, Miss, longtime member of the proofreading staff

Ernst, Mr., editor of the Open Road for Boys magazine, published by the AMP

Faunce, Frances, secretary, Agnes’s close friend

Faunce, Mr., father of the above

Fitzpatrick, Miss, general manager

Hebden, Miss, head of the salesroom

Howe, Mark Anthony DeWolfe, writer, editor, manufacturing department, vice president of the AMP 1911–1929, Agnes’s boss 1923–1924

Kilmer, Helen, stockroom staff

Knowlton, Margaret, Mr. Howe’s secretary in 1922, Agnes’s close friend

Lee, Mary, assistant to Dr. Condon, lives in Chestnut Hill

Lennon, Miss, office manager

Pound, Arthur, assistant editor of the AMP and the Independent, Agnes’s boss in 1924

Sedgwick, Ellery, since 1908 owner and editor-in-chief of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, owner and editor-in-chief of the AMP

Sedgwick, Mrs. Mabel Cabot, wife of the above

Smith, Bertha, advertising department, neighbor in Cambridge

Thomas, Charles Swain, editor, education department, lecturer at Harvard, Agnes’s boss 1922–1924

Thomas, Mrs., wife of the above

Tompson, Betty, secretary, Agnes’s companion on vacation to Canada in 1923

Turner, Mrs. Ruth, secretary, introduced Agnes to Margery Gilbert (see below)

Worcester, Connie, proofreading department staff

The Boston Evening Transcript

Barker, Miss, assistant to Mr. Edgett

Edgett, E. T., literary editor

Miss Gill, feature editor

Guyol, Louise, writer, editor, Agnes’s mentor (see below)

Orr, Clifford, feature writer, Dartmouth graduate, friend of Louise Guyol

Ginn and Company, Textbook Publishers

Dodge, Elise, writer, talkative friend of Barbara Hahn (see below)

McGinnis, Miss, secretary

Roberts, Ruth, secretary, Agnes’s close friend, companion on Cape Cod in 1924

Thurber, Charles H., editor-in-chief

Wheeler, Miss, secretary

Boston Herald

Minot, Mr., editor

Cambridge, Housemates/Friends

Bates, Gladys, from Texas, Agnes’s roommate at 14 Centre Street

Tanner, Carolyn, from Texas (whom Agnes met at the Atlantic), later worked in fashion design

Tanner, Jean (John), Carolyn’s sister

Tanner, Mary, younger sister of Carolyn and John

Tanner, Professor William M., brother of Carolyn, John and Mary, lives nearby

Tanner, Mrs., wife of the above

Tanner, Stephen, young son of the above

Tanner, Mrs., senior, mother/grandmother of the above, visiting from Texas

Male Friends/Acquaintances

Berle, Rudolph, lawyer, friend of Louise Guyol

Buell, Raymond, relative of the Allens (Berkeley connection), teaches at Harvard

Carter, Mr., UC Berkeley graduate, at Harvard Law School, introduced Agnes to Leo

Emerson, Howard, from Washington state, at MIT, Methodist friend of Leo

Holland, Mr., writer, friend of Hazel Smith, waiting to get into Harvard

Laverty, Finley, Leo’ s roommate at MIT his last year

Malone, Harold, law student at Harvard

Moody, Frank, friend of the Tanners

Myrick, George, MIT, friend of Leo’s

Partin, John Leo, student at MIT, Agnes’s southern beau

Pearson, Carl, from Nebraska, law student at Harvard

Preston, Mr., law student at Harvard

Tybalt, Bob, friend of Jean Tanner who has a car

Work, Bill, Leo’s roommate at MIT his first year

Other Friends/Acquaintances

Adlow, Dorothy, assistant art editor, Christian Science Monitor

Bose, Lois Jenkins, friend from Imperial Valley, lives in Magnolia, MA

Bose, Roy, husband of the above, divinity student at Boston U, Magnolia, MA

Caswell, Margaret, journalist with the Post, friend of Louise Guyol

Clay, Miss, co-manager of Villa Mon Repos, Cape Cod, MA

Gilbert, Margery, Agnes’s traveling companion in Europe in 1925

Hahn, Barbara, writer published by AMP

Hubbard, Marjorie, friend of Ruth Roberts

Lawton, Alice, novelist, friend of Louise Guyol

Leander, Miss, Swedish friend of Louise Guyol

Lowe, Gladys, psychologist, friend of Carolyn Tanner

McNaught, Wallace, cousin of Bertha Smith, lives in Dorchester, has a good radio

Palmer, Lois, journalist, Boston American newspaper, Agnes’s good friend

Schuster, M. Lincoln, journalist, teacher, contributor to the Transcript, friend of Louise Guyol, cofounder (in 1924) of Simon and Schuster, Inc.

Stanley, Mrs. Grace, co-manager of Villa Mon Repos, Cape Cod, MA

Talbot, Mira, Agnes’s traveling companion in Europe in 1925

7 Allen Street Friends/Neighbors

Brophy, Mr., Bail Commissioner, neighbor

Brophy, Mrs., wife of the above

Fitzgerald, Mr. and Mrs., neighbors and owners of the building

Fitzgerald, Jack and Janie, children of the above

Gerould, Elizabeth, niece of Mrs. Brophy

Guyol, Bouton, Louise’s sixteen-year-old nephew

Guyol, Louise, writer, Agnes’s mentor and roommate

Professor, another neighbor

Foreword

252577.png

You see, Suzanne⁵ has sort of picked me up because she likes me, even though I—and what is more important to the Bostonian point of view, my family—am absolutely unknown. She has lots of social prestige if she cares to use it, and practically all of the people she knows and goes around with are in the same boat. They naturally accept me the same way when Suzanne presents me, and it is very funny indeed to see them trying to fit me into their idea of what a girl should do. I’m so absolutely unattached. And all I have to get along with is my brain, and it works over-time taking them all in.

Agnes Edwards’s self-evaluation as expressed in her letter of July 30, 1923, reflects her loving upbringing in the harsh climate of the Imperial Valley desert in the early years of the twentieth century, crowned by her sterling performance at the University of California, from which she graduated as a Phi Beta Kappa in 1921. Determined to find her place in the literary world of Boston, encouraged by the letters of introduction given her by deans at Berkeley, who were impressed by both her scholarship and her typing skills, she quickly settled into a secretarial position at the Atlantic Monthly Press on Arlington Street, overlooking the Public Garden. These were three vastly different environments: Southern California desert, San Francisco Bay Area, and now the publishing center of New England.

Though hardly to be ranked with Boston, the Berkeley of World War I and the return to normalcy did bring a diverse number of visitors to the campus. In September 1919, President Woodrow Wilson gave an address at the Greek Theatre, and Agnes was in the audience. Writing to her parents, she noted that Mrs. Wilson was a fine example of poise … one of the Public Speaking instructors said that she wished all of her students had seen them, as examples of self-control and poise.

Once Agnes had settled in at 78 St. Stephen Street, across the street from Boston’s Symphony Hall, she was able to savor the local offerings. In late October 1922 she went to see Isadora Duncan … [her] costume was very scanty and wouldn’t stay in place. … the censors have decreed that she shall never appear here again—too few clothes, too free ideas on politics, marriage, religion, and a few other things … She certainly shocked poor old Boston clear through. In that same month she heard Harry Lauder at the opera house. Later, with her close Berkeley friend Bessie Nelson, who was visiting at the time, she saw Laurette Taylor in Peg o’ My Heart, which was perfectly darling, and Buster Keaton in The Electric House. Still later, she saw Ethel Barrymore on the stage in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.

How, one wonders, was she able to attend these events on her twenty-five dollar-a-week salary? Along with her full-time job, she had begun to submit short pieces that appeared in the Boston Evening Transcript. The first of these was "October in California," for which she received $3.25; it was later published in an Atlantic Monthly Press book in 1923. And she regularly reviewed books for that newspaper, whose readers, according to the then-new poet T. S. Eliot (yes, from that old Boston family), sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.⁶ Every little bit helps.

Too, one learns that prices in restaurants were relatively low. I had my supper at the YWCA cafeteria … meat pie, cocoa, rolls and ice cream, and it only cost 20 cents! Sunday dinner at the Café de Paris on November 5, 1922, cost 75 cents:  … fruit cocktail, soup, sirloin steak and french fried potatoes, fruit salad, lots of rolls and butter, ice cream, and coffee, and I certainly felt uncomfortable afterward. In addition, Agnes was her own custom tailor! Bought material to make a dress Friday—blue Roshanara crepe as per sample. It will be made very plainly—Vogue Pattern 7575 … Must get to work on it, and as no engagements loom on the horizon thus far for this week, I ought to finish it very soon.

By spring of 1923 she had taken on other duties. Mr. Thomas, her boss, "stayed at home today and worked on a manuscript, and I worked on one too—a new edition of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that we are going to bring out. This is the first one I’ve done all by myself, and I wonder if I did everything that I’m supposed to. Her seventh month as a secretary! Mentioning one of the other editors for whom she did extra duty, she wrote, I am certainly busy, what with keeping all the old threads in their proper places and weaving in Mr. Pound’s new ones at the same time. But I guess I can manage them." In June she witnessed a performance of the senior play at Boston University. Milestones dealt with the conflict between youth and age. Another thing it shows, perhaps without meaning to, is the emancipation of women—some difference between the girl of 1861 and the one of 1912! Women have had a pretty rough time ever since the world began, and heaven help the men when the tables are finally completely turned.

A picnic excursion to Salem and beyond is a change in pace. Agnes and two friends walked through the old quarters of Salem,

where you didn’t hear a word of English, until we came to the House of the Seven Gables, made famous by Hawthorne’s novel. It is really a lovely old place, right on the edge of the water, and well kept up. It is a weather-beaten gray, with seven sharp gables, and is surrounded by a nice garden. It is now run by a settlement, which has classes for foreigners in various buildings close around. The entrance fee is 25 cents, and a guide takes you all through. There is a wonderful secret staircase which leads up from the back of the wood-closet by the fireplace in the dining room; and in the room upstairs into which it opens it is concealed by a panel operated by a hidden spring, just like the mystery stories which you read … The trolley ride out to Marblehead was very pretty … we bought an order of hot fried clams and walked out to the end of the point, past a fort, and ate our lunch on the docks there … sandwiches, pickle, the clams (which were wonderfully good), fruit, and raisins, and the pickle juice leaked through the package and through my skirt.

Beginning her second year at the Atlantic Monthly Press, Agnes now joined three other young professional women in an apartment in Cambridge, where soon they presided over a salon for students at Harvard and MIT. It was there in the spring of 1924 that she had a grand old talk on California … A chap whom we know brought … a friend along, and the friend turned out to be from Los Angeles. They are studying engineering at MIT and hope to get in on the Boulder Dam construction. It is the first of these two chaps, a Georgia native, who would loom large in Agnes’s life for the next sixty-three years: John Leo Partin. In some ways living in Cambridge was more comfortable, but Agnes continued to come home with bundles of reading.

Tonight I have some work for Mr. Thomas to do, and also brought home some material for my regular job that I find it hard to get done at the office. We are getting out a book of stories mostly about eighteenth-century characters, and each one has to have a brief prefatory article. Mr. Howe has entrusted the writing of them to me, and I’m anxious to do my best—tho’ of course I know he’ll probably change all of them. I am always surprised when he leaves anything I’ve done unchanged. It has meant getting a lot of books out of the library and poring over them, looking for appropriate quotations, etc. I love it, but it certainly takes time … If I were only strong-minded enough to decide on one course of action and stick to it! But I’m not. I’m a queer combination of student and frivolous girl, and though both sides are enjoyable, I don’t advance very far in either direction.

In late April of 1924 she visited her friend Gwen Keene and her family in Brookline. We had a great time talking about the west and comparing experiences. They are all very jolly and so friendly that they make you feel at home at once … It seems so nice to meet a regular ‘family’ once in a while, before its embers scatter all over.

For her third year Agnes rented a friend’s small apartment near to her office, a twenty-minute walk to the Old North Church. Her downstairs neighbors, Mr. Brophy the bail commissioner and his wife, had the only telephone available for calls, as well as a sewing machine that Agnes was able to use for her never-ending home tailoring chores. They become a part of her life and witness the almost constant presence of Leo Partin, and finally learn of their engagement in the spring of 1925.

Over the course of these three years, as recorded in her letters to her parents, Agnes grew in intellectual outlook as she grew in emotional maturity. She made plans for both her literary future and for her marriage. What a pleasure to share in this growth, her editorial responsibilities, her blossoming romance. In her last letter of 1924, she writes, I went to the library in the afternoon … and finished Mark Twain’s letters. They are certainly worth reading. And one speculates: had she been born a half-century later, she might have become a student assistant for the Mark Twain Project of the Bancroft Library at Berkeley and worked on the manuscripts that have now been published as The Autobiography of Mark Twain. Instead the reader will share her last days in Boston, her visit with Leo Partin to that other Boston, in Georgia, to meet his family, and then her summer in Europe. Her determination in 1921 to do Boston and then do Europe was realized. A winner!

Finally, in her letter of March 25, 1925, Agnes reports looking through her old clothes to decide what she needs to keep, and then she says:

I read some old letters and looked at old pictures, and walked with ghosts for a while. Gracious, I’ve already forgotten so many of the things I’ve seen and done. It’s a good thing I’ll have my letters to you to fall back upon, if I ever try to reconstruct the story of my life.

J. R. K. Kantor

Chapter 1

September–December 1922

252603.png

I’VE AIMED HIGH

There was no doubt that twenty-three-year-old Agnes Edwards had ambition. It stemmed from the self-confidence she had gained during her university years, and from being in the first generation of women to vote. Her professors had encouraged her to pursue a career in publishing or teaching. And she knew she could support herself with her secretarial skills and job experience.

So it was, in the fall of 1922, that Agnes journeyed to Boston. Tucked securely in her handbag were letters of introduction from influential people at UC Berkeley: Walter Morris Hart (dean of the summer session, for whom Agnes had worked for four years), Chauncey Welles (a professor of English), and Mrs. May Cheney (university appointments secretary). Agnes was more excited than apprehensive. She knew what she wanted: a chance to break into the writing and editing field. She also knew what she did not want: to be stuck in stenography for the rest of her life. She had had enough of that at Berkeley. Dean Hart had a Ph.D from Harvard, which carried considerable weight, especially in Boston. Agnes was counting on his letter, extolling her scholastic and secretarial abilities, to give her an entrée into the new world she sought.

September 18, 1922

78 St. Stephen St.

Boston 17

Dear Folks:

It was dark before [the train] got to Boston … so I didn’t see much of it. We were over an hour late, too. When I got off, I looked for a porter but didn’t see any, so I staggered up the steps, and just as I got to the top, a girl caught up with me and asked if I were Agnes Edwards. Then another one appeared, and I was safe. The poor kids⁷ had had a long wait for me. One of them had a date and left, and the other got a taxi, and we were soon here. She hadn’t had anything to eat either, so we went to a drugstore and had some sandwiches and pie, talked a while, and then I was glad to tumble into bed.

The girls haven’t really a whole sorority house—a woman whose name is Mrs. Milman (guess that’s right) but whom they all call Fannie rents them their bedrooms, and one room downstairs is the chapter room. Then when they have parties, they have the use of the entire living room. There is a little kitchenette where they keep their dishes and can cook things, but they don’t have a cook, or dining room. There aren’t enough AGDs to fill all the rooms (there are only seven rooms), so outsiders live in the others. There are three of the girls who are working: Reina Blanchard, Mildred Hausman, (who is my roommate), and Irene Hassam. The others are beginning to arrive, as college opens tomorrow. Tomorrow also is the birthday of this chapter, and they’re having a party in the afternoon and evening, so I’ll get to meet most of the alumni and actives then. The rooms are very nice; large with separate beds, and have—an important item—full-length mirrors besides others of generous size on the walls. Fannie cleans them and even makes the beds. We have separate closets, too, so we have lots of room. We have to furnish our own towels, but apparently not the bedding or other things. We are on the third floor, and our windows face the alley, which isn’t very attractive. There are high brick buildings across, too, so that we really can’t see a thing. But naturally we aren’t in the room a great deal.

St. Stephen Street is really in a very good location. We are very close to a number of important buildings, such as Symphony Hall, where the big concerts are given; the opera house; the horticultural and mechanical buildings, where exhibits of all sorts are held; the YMCA and YWCA; and Mother Eddy’s⁸ Christian Science Church (the first one in the US; it is very large, and has chimes that sound almost exactly like the Campanile chimes); and there is a park nearby, and it isn’t far to the Charles River, along which there is a long and pretty walk called the Esplanade. On the opposite shore are the buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The river is a large one, but they say it freezes over so people skate on it. Boston University, where all of these girls attended, has no campus at all, and the buildings are scattered absolutely all over the city. It doesn’t seem like a college to me at all. There are ten sororities, but none of the others have even as much house as this.

At first I thought it would be awful to have to eat all our meals out, but it won’t be. There is a drugstore just around the corner where the girls get toast and coffee for fifteen cents—you can have more if you want it, of course. And there is a café over the store where you can get a good dinner for fifty cents. I’ve been getting a good lunch for a small amount downtown, and I figure that I can live on a dollar a day for food for a while at least. However, my appetite is growing, and I weigh ninety-six and a half pounds. That’s pretty good, I think.

Sunday morning I unpacked. Things were in a regular mess in my trunk. The poor things had certainly been banged around, for one of the side hasps was entirely gone. However, the card I pasted on with my name was still there … I took out practically everything I thought I’d need, and the trunk is stowed away in a hall closet. I have my pictures up and my books out, so I feel settled. Mildred and I get along very well, although she is not the kind that I could ever be awfully chummy with. I imagine that she’s younger than I, but considerably larger. She keeps books in a brokerage office, and she’s engaged to a man called Bill. The girls really are all as dear as can be and are doing their best to make me feel at home.

We went out for our Sunday dinner about two o’clock, and then took a long walk along by the river and through part of the city so that I would have an idea of how to start out the next day. Coming home, we bought things for a Welsh rarebit and got our own supper. One of the outside girls here, Elizabeth Young, was with us. She is tall and dark, very nice looking, and I think I’ll like her very much. She’s a stenographer over at Tech.⁹ She and I are going to hear the musical comedy Sally sometime next week. We all went to bed pretty early Sunday night.

Then yesterday my fun began. Armed with all my letters, I set out before nine o’clock and didn’t get back until five, and I know I walked twenty miles. First I went to the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union to get a general line on things. I had a letter of introduction from Mrs. Cheney to a Miss Jackson. She happened to be out sick, but one of her assistants was very sweet and gave me a good deal of information and told me to come back later in the day, when a Miss Norton would help me. Then I went to the offices of Ginn and Co., where I was fairly sure of a good introduction. It even surpassed my hopes, however. Mr. Thurber, one of the officers of the firm,¹⁰ knows Dean Hart well and had apparently heard more or less about me. First I went to his secretary, Miss Wheeler, to whom I had a letter. She was very nice, and took me to see Mrs. Thomas, the geography editor … She was lovely too, and then Mr. Thurber arrived. He is a great big man, very hale and hearty, and had just returned from his vacation, so was in a splendid good humor. He was much surprised when I was introduced, and said "Is this that girl?"¹¹ I talked to him a long time, and I could have had some stenographic work or some work in the music department helping prepare manuscripts for publication, but I didn’t want to do anything definite until I had at least looked up all the people to whom I had letters. Perhaps I only imagined it, but I thought his manner changed when I didn’t accept at once. However, I am pretty sure that if I go back, there’ll be an opening for me. They have nice offices, a splendid reputation, etc., but of course they publish only textbooks, and that isn’t the line I’m after.

It was eleven thirty when I got away from there, so I looked up Reina, who works nearby, and we had lunch together. After one o’clock, I started again, but didn’t find anyone in until two o’clock, when I talked to two women of the Atlantic Monthly Publishing Co.¹² Their magazine is absolutely the most highbrow and most perfect that there is, and they publish only a high grade of books. To my joy, one of the women, who is their office manager, said that within two weeks there are apt to be two openings, one as secretary to one of the editors and the other in the editorial department. She seemed rather impressed by my letters and experience, and even though the salary would only be about $25 a week to start with, I believe I’d sacrifice some money to be connected with them. They are in an old stone mansion facing the Boston Public Garden.

After I left there, I went to Houghton Mifflin, where another friend of Professor Wells works. He was in a conference, so I talked to another man. He introduced me to a Mr. Nichols, a Californian who went there on Wells’s recommendation and has made good decidedly. He seemed very nice too. Then I talked to the woman who does the hiring, and although she was very kind, the only place they had open paid $20 a week, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to take that. However, I left my name there too.

Then, with a good many misgivings, I approached the literary editor of the Boston Transcript, the best paper of the city. He proved to be quite approachable but has more or less a one-man job, so sent me in to see a Miss Gill of the magazine section. I was thrilled to pieces there, for that is the section where they print the feature stories about little things which you see happening every day. She was sweet as could be and introduced me to a youth¹³ whom I had at first supposed to be the office boy, but who is one of their regular feature writers. He got out stacks and showed me his own, and then both encouraged me to start right in and try some. They are going to have a special October issue soon, and they suggested that I write one on October in California. So I’m going to see what I can do. Gee, I’d be thrilled if I could begin to have articles accepted! They pay $7.50 per one thousand words. At that rate, how much are my letters worth? When I left there, I walked on thin air clear over to the other side of town, back to the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, and called on Miss Norton … She was about to leave but took time to give me a couple of cards to the Women’s City Club … and to do several other nice things.

With that I called it a day and walked all the way back. I was surely ready for my dinner, and had planned to turn in early, but Bill came and I had to go downstairs and meet him. I almost fell over, for he’s 6 feet 3½ inches tall, weighs 228, and, as he insisted upon telling me, wears a number-twelve shoe. I hadn’t been prepared for quite that much of him. After a while, another man came, one who has two Alpha Gamma Delta sisters. They were an awful pair—both so big and husky, and I don’t know whether they were trying to get my goat or not, but they certainly used language which I’m not used to hearing and did lots of things that I didn’t like. However, I tried to be a good sport for Mildred’s sake, and after a while, when we went out for something to eat, they had calmed down very much. However, if they’re a sample of Boston men, deliver me!

This morning I telephoned and made an appointment with Miss McCrady at Harvard, whom I had written at Dean Hart’s suggestion. It takes about fifteen minutes from here by surface car, and I was there about ten thirty. She was busy, as she’s leaving in a week, but between times we talked, and she tho’t I had done surprisingly well for one day. She gave me some valuable information, referred me to a woman in the Harvard alumni office in Boston, and made arrangements with the university bankers so that I cashed a couple of traveler’s checks without any trouble. It was about noon then, so I took the subway that landed me downtown in Boston. I had some lunch and then wandered through the stores until two o’clock, knowing from experience that lunch hours are late here. Then I looked up this Miss Mourk in the Harvard alumni office … She places Harvard graduates in business positions, and to my surprise she also thought that I had done remarkably well. She said business salaries also were very low and thought I’d do well to take one of these jobs. She was very friendly, and I enjoyed talking with her.

Miss Gill, at the Transcript office yesterday, had suggested that I see the literary editor of the Boston Herald, so up I went. Really, I get more and more surprised at myself, for I’m absolutely getting so I’m not afraid of anyone. I guess it’s because I’ve really aimed very high, and the biggest people are almost always the nicest. Anyway, this Mr. Minot was a peach … He started Miss Gill upon her career, it seems. He didn’t have anything for me to do, but thought the Atlantic Monthly Press opening an excellent one. Moreover, he knows the editor, whose secretaryship may be open—very well—and promised to say something to him if he had a chance. I was amazed at his cordiality, as I have been at that of everyone else. Either California is a magic word or Boston coldness is a myth. One publisher yesterday wasn’t overly nice, but he looked tired and worried, and anyway it wasn’t a very big firm. This Mr. Minot also gave me information and advice, including places he didn’t think I should try, as well as those I should. You see, they all think I’m a little girl. When I left him I was feeling happy again, and to wind matters up, I went back to the Educational and Industrial Union, but the office was closed. I got home about five o’clock … and had two more cards from you.

We sang a while tonight (an AGD tradition), but it’s 10:30 p.m. now and I must get to bed. Mildred has gone to the movies. Although the girls have lovely Boston accents, they use lots of slang (and even can swear), roll their stockings, and do everything that westerners do. I saw two girls in hiking togs, and it seems that knickers are generally worn. Long skirts are shown in the windows but haven’t appeared on the streets yet, and the girls declare they won’t wear ’em. So I guess my dresses will be OK … I’ll stop for this time … Will decide about the jobs tomorrow. Bessie¹⁴ is coming Friday. Love to everyone—Agnes.

September 23, 1922

78 St. Stephen Street

Boston, Mass.

Dear Folks:

Just a week ago tonight … I arrived, and a lot of things certainly have happened. I’m very much excited right this minute, but I’ll lead up to it gradually … Wednesday morning … I went first thing … to the Educational and Industrial Union and filed my formal application with them besides getting some more advice. Then I went to the Atlantic Monthly office and asked if they had any more definite information, and the woman said they’d know by the end of the week. Then I started to go to one of the typewriter companies to see if they had some purely temporary work for me, but just as I was turning across Boston Common, the idea of going to Ginn and Co. again to tell them what I’d been doing struck me. So up I went and talked to Miss Wheeler, Mr. Thurber’s secretary, again. She was still friendly and interested, and again I went up against Thurber himself. We almost had a fight, disagreed utterly, and came out the best of friends. He was surprised, I guess, that I talked back to him, but at that he wasn’t as surprised as I was. I never imagined I had so much nerve. I told him I’d work for him providing I didn’t get the other job, and he said Ginn was good enough for anyone. I said I wanted to be free to go to a better position if I could, and he said he didn’t want anyone who didn’t intend to stay. I mentioned the temporary place in the Music Department, and he said it wasn’t temporary, would last six months. I said I couldn’t consider it, and then he began to talk about it until it sounded rather interesting. So I said I’d go and talk to Miss Leavitt, the assistant editor of the Music Department. He also admitted then that there was some temporary work under the nice Mrs. Thomas in the Geography Department which I might have. So we parted on the best of terms, and I spent a very interesting hour with the music lady. I told her very frankly that I knew next to nothing about music, but she said that wasn’t nearly as important as intelligence and general education. She wanted to create a new position for someone who could take over more and more of her own work, visit schools, compose poems to fit tunes, etc. There wouldn’t be any regular office work or stenography to do, and in time the person who took the place would also become assistant editor. Then she said she had been considering someone else, a music teacher, but she felt that my education and background were better. Tra-la! She talked a blue streak, but I put in a word whenever I could, and when I left she said she liked me very much. So much for that. Then I went to the Geography Department, and they could have put me to work that afternoon, but because of the party here at the house, I preferred to begin Thursday morning. That was OK. Then one of the staff who had lived in California for a number of years and whose son had gone to UC, and one of the other girls in the office, took me to lunch at the Business Women’s Club. That was very nice of them, I thought.

After leaving them I went to the Remington Typewriter Company and asked to have them demonstrate one of those little portables. A very nice man showed me everything about it and, when he learned that I was a stranger, tried to give all sorts of good advice about where to live, etc. He was from Virginia himself, and I don’t think he likes Boston very well. He wanted to send me one of the machines on trial, and even said he had to come out this way in his car and would be glad to take me home. Needless to say I had matters to attend to which prevented that—although he was very gentlemanly. And I didn’t take a machine either, as they cost sixty dollars. Of course you can get them on time, and I may do that yet. When I left there I went and bought a pair of shoes—black, one strap, rather low heels. And when the clerk took off my oxford, he asked me where I bought those shoes. I told him, and bless pat if he hadn’t worked in that very store in LA. I thought that was a very strange coincidence. He has a daughter who was born in LA, and said they planned to go back sometime.

On the way home I stopped at the public library and read a Los Angeles Times. The library is just a nice walk from here, and I plan to spend a good many evenings there reading. When I got here, guests were already arriving, so I dressed and went down as soon as I could. In the course of the afternoon and evening, I met ever so many of their grads and most of the actives. Of course everyone was talking at once, and it was just like a similar gathering in Berkeley. One of the grand officers of the fraternity was here, as she is visiting her mother in a nearby suburb. She is having a party for the alumnae at her mother’s on October 7, and gave me a special invitation to go. The girls seem very nice, and the ones here in the house are dear as can be. We get along beautifully, and I think the winter is going to be very pleasant in the relations here. There was a girl from our chapter in Canada, and one from a new chapter in Ohio,¹⁵ and we three outsiders got together and had a good talk. They are both going to be here all winter. The girls here served a nice luncheon, and as there was lots of ice cream, several of us worked the kitchen force for second helpings. There was a short meeting after the party, and it seemed rather good to be with a sorority again.

I had to be at Ginn and Co. at nine o’clock, and as Mildred has the same hours, we have been going together. If we get up at eight o’clock, we just make it. We get our breakfast at the corner drugstore, and can get the car right there too. It is a surface car here but goes into the subway before it gets downtown. Boston subways can’t compare with those in NY for speed, comfort, noise, cleanliness, or anything else—strike me as being sort of a joke. After I get out of the subway, I walk along the edge of the Boston Common, around the Massachusetts Statehouse, and I’m there. I go to the sixth floor, and I’m ready for the day’s work. I’ve been doing miscellaneous work, but mostly verifying statistics for a new geography of Arkansas which they are preparing. I never knew Arkansas was such a wonderful state before, but it really has many resources which one wouldn’t dream of. Everyone in the department is nice as can be, and I can’t imagine a pleasanter place to work. The hours are nine to five—lunch from one to two.

Thursday night, I worked on my article on October in California, cut my lunch hour short yesterday, typed it on the office machine, and mailed it last night. I didn’t think it was any good, and I haven’t any idea that it will be printed. But I have ever so many ideas for other articles, and I’m going to send at least one a week.

Yesterday morning, Miss Leavitt (Music Dept. at Ginn’s) called me in and made a definite offer of the position which we had discussed. She would want me to begin two weeks from Monday, and I’d get twenty-five dollars a week for the first three months, then thirty dollars if I were doing satisfactory work, and so on up. She said Ginn and Co. was quick to reward ability and progress, and that she felt sure I would be satisfied. She said she would like very much to have me work for her and go to her home, and if I accept I’m to go to a banquet for all of the women employed by the firm, as her guest (Monday night). So much for that.

Bessie arrived in Boston yesterday about noon, and I went to the hotel to see her as soon as I was through for the day.¹⁶ … The hotel they are at is the Touraine, a very nice and very expensive one, and we had a wonderful dinner: chicken soup with rice, creamed sweetbreads on toast, sweet potato croquettes, succotash, the best chocolate ice cream I ever ate, and cream éclairs. I told Bessie I could live a week on a meal like that. Finally … we settled down and talked … I came home on the subway … and was still wide awake when Mildred came in, and we talked until after 1:00 a.m., rather foolish when we are working girls.

Saturday, Ginn’s office hours are nine to one. I had my lunch at a little place where you can get served in a hurry, and had my first taste of real Boston baked beans and brown bread. Apparently they only serve them on Saturdays. They certainly were good, too. Then I went to the hotel again, and just as I got into the elevator, Bessie came running from one of the reception rooms where she had been waiting for me. She had to go upstairs every once in a while to see if her lady … wanted anything, so our talking was rather spasmodic. Finally she got her settled for the afternoon and we went for a walk … Bessie has to be back at work at the Yale University Library in New Haven Tuesday morning. I haven’t talked as much since she left Berkeley, I guess, as I have in these short hours.

This afternoon, I had a Special Delivery letter from the Atlantic Monthly¹⁷ asking me to call as early as possible Monday morning to talk over the place there, and also a phone message asking me to call Mr. Thomas, one of the editors. I didn’t succeed in getting him until about eight thirty, but I’m so excited I don’t see how I can ever wait. He asked how long I’d lived in California, what my major subjects were, if I were thoroughly familiar with the California territory, etc., and I said I was and more, etc. And I’m to see him at a quarter of nine Monday—I can’t help thinking from his questions that there may be something pretty good in store. He said they wanted someone to come at once, and I told him I felt a certain obligation to finish this work at Ginn’s, but he said he knew people there and could probably arrange matters for me. Which sounds as though he’s anxious to have me. Dear me, I’ve had so much excitement this last week—it’s a good thing I haven’t a weak heart. I’ll write you just as soon as I find out anything definite. Anyway, I guess I’m mighty lucky to be turning down jobs instead of begging for them.

I also had a letter from Miss Jackson (at the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union) to whom Mrs. Cheney’s letter was directed. I haven’t seen her, as she has been ill, but I sent a note to her assistant telling of my employment, and Miss Jackson asked me to come in so that she may meet me in a personal way.

Still more excitement—I had a letter from Aubrey Graves¹⁸ today from New York, where he arrived on Thursday. He has a job already as secretary to the sales manager of the concern which publishes Collier’s and a number of other magazines. Talk about luck—that boy certainly has it. He isn’t going to Columbia until after Christmas.

The weather has been simply perfect ever since I’ve been here. Several mornings were almost frosty. But the sun has been shining every day, and it is just cool enough to make you feel energetic. Most people are wearing big coats, but I’ve just worn my suit and been very comfortable.

Out here the streets are wide, but down in the business district they are just as narrow and just as crooked as people told me they were. The sidewalks are so narrow and the crowds so dense that if you are in a hurry you have to get right out on the street, and that’s what lots of people do—walk in the street just as we did in Westmorland. The stores are packed all the time. Apparently prices are very reasonable, and in the one basement which I have visited they were the lowest I’ve seen yet.

Sunday p.m. We got up about eight thirty this morning and went out for our breakfast. When we came back, Fannie jumped all over me because I did so much washing last night—my first experience with a regular landlady … I didn’t do anything but waists, handkerchiefs, etc. But she forgave me in a little while, and apparently she just gets irritable spells.

Mildred and I washed our hair, and it wasn’t dry yet when Bessie arrived. We had planned to go to the Mother Christian Science Church near here. But instead we … walked down to what they call the New Old South—it being an old, old church which they have moved uptown and enlarged … It is a beautiful church—Congregationalist … Bessie came back about five, and we went for a nice walk around what they call the Fenway, a sort of park where water backs in from the Charles River. It was … very warm this afternoon … and I think people rather expect a thunderstorm. I do hope it isn’t raining in the morning.

This evening Mildred, Bessie, and I went to a place called the Chimes Spa for our supper. A spa is really a sort of lunchroom and soda fountain. They do have funny names for things here. Then we went to the Christian Science Church, which is a magnificent white marble structure more like a theatre than a church. It seats five thousand people, as there are galleries around the sides and back. I don’t care for their service at all, but the church is worth seeing. We got home about nine, after putting Bessie on the car … I did some ironing after I came home, and now must get some sleep so I can make a good impression on the editor. Lovingly, Agnes.

September 25, 1922

Dear Folks:

Well, tomorrow morning I start in at the Atlantic Monthly Press as secretary to Mr. Thomas, who is the head of their Educational Department. I was there promptly at a quarter of nine, and he was there already. I liked him very much, and apparently he liked me, for he said I could take off my hat and go to work at once if I wanted to. He is a lecturer in English at Harvard, and his department so far has published nothing but English books, so I’ll be working in a very familiar department and atmosphere. There will be some proofreading and other editorial work to do, and as the department is a young one, there will probably be a good many chances for advancement. I told Mr. Thomas all of my various schemes, and he was very much interested and said they’d be glad to help me in every way they can. Also, he said if I ever decided to teach, he would be in a position to help me. The salary is twenty-five dollars a week to start, which everyone seems to think is very good for here.

After I got through talking to him, I went to over to Ginn’s, and everyone was lovely—said they believed I was really choosing the better opportunity, and wished me all success. I stayed today to finish what I was doing, and was paid eighteen dollars for my three and a half days. Mrs. McGinnis, the woman from California, invited me to her home—said her son wanted to talk UC to me. And Ruth Roberts, the Boston University girl there, was so nice—arranged to have lunch with me and carry on our acquaintance. Mr. Thurber was sweet—said he hated to lose anyone of my caliber, etc., but thought I was doing the right thing. So I’m taking up the new work with an absolutely clear conscience. It really was beyond my wildest hopes ever to get into the Atlantic Monthly Company.

I’ll write you more in a few days when I know more about the work. Agnes.

October 1, 1922

Dear Folks:

I guess I haven’t written since last Monday night, but from now on I can be more regular. Will let you hear twice a week … I’m so glad everything is all right, and am anxious to get a nice, long letter telling all the news.

To take up my story where I left off, I went to work at the new job Tuesday morning and got along just splendidly all week. I get more enthusiastic about it all the time, and if it works out as I believe it will, I guess I’ve really found my permanent vocation. Mr. Thomas, my editor, is a tall, slender man, about fifty I guess, though his hair is snow white. He is quiet, considerate, and friendly. His wife has been quite ill for a long while, and his only son died last summer, so I feel sorry for him. I made up my mind from the first never to let him get the peculiar