Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/285

 My next assignment consisted of going from pastor to pastor each Sunday afternoon and finding church news for Monday morning's paper, sorting out routine announcements and digging relentlessly for some bit of real religious news. Next I was sent down on what was known as Implement Row, where agricultural machinery was handled, there to climb for one whole long day in each week over platforms and trucks and under freight-cars, often to be rewarded with less than a column of personal items about traveling men or out-of-town visitors. I worked so hard I scarcely had time to eat. And all the while that staff remained full! Men had the police run, the postoffice, the federal courthouse and the theaters—all of which I felt I could do, oh, so very well!

Those were shoe-destroying, soul-wearing days, but when I finally came to New York and was told by the city editor on a large paper to go down to the Battery and get a certain emigrant story, I thanked the good old mid-West paper and its patient staff of editors who had trained me to start for the Battery without asking the irritable city editor where the Battery was, how much copy he wanted, what I should ask the emigrant, etc. Those early days when I had had to squeeze news from the mere leavings of news-sources had taught me how to get a