Linda started to school half an hour earlier Wednesday morning because that was the day for her weekly trip to the Post Office for any mail which might have come to her under the name of Jane Meredith. She had hard work to keep down her color when she recognized the heavy gray envelope used by the editor of Everybody's Home. As she turned from the window with it in her fingers she was trembling slightly and wondering whether she could have a minute's seclusion to face the answer which her last letter might have brought. There was a small alcove beside a public desk at one side of the room. Linda stepped into this, tore open the envelope and slipped out the sheet it contained.
Dazedly she stared at the slip that fell from it. Slowly the color left her cheeks and then came rushing back from her surcharged heart until her very ears were red, because that slip was very manifestly a cheque for five hundred dollars. Mentally and physically Linda shook herself, then she straightened to full height, tensing her muscles and holding the sheet before her with a hand on each side to keep it from shaking, while she read:
MY DEAR MADAM:
I sincerely apologize for having waited so long before writing you of the very exceptional reception which your articles have had. I think one half their attraction has been the exquisite and appealing pictures you have sent for their illustration. At the present minute they are forming what I consider the most unique feature in the magazine. I am enclosing you a cheque for five hundred dollars as an initial payment on the series. Just what the completed series should be worth I am unable to say until you inform me how many months you can keep it up at the same grade of culinary and literary interest and attractive illustration; but I should say at a rough estimate that you would be safe in counting upon a repetition of this cheque for every three articles you send in. This of course includes payment for the pictures also, which are to me if anything more attractive than the recipes, since the local color and environment they add to the recipe and the word sketch are valuable in the extreme.
If you feel that you can continue this to the extent of even a small volume, I shall be delighted to send you a book contract.
In considering this proposition, let me say that if you could not produce enough recipes to fill a book, you could piece it out to the necessary length most charmingly and attractively by lengthening the descriptions of the environment in which the particular fruits and vegetables you deal with are to be found;and in book form you might allow yourself much greater latitude in the instructions concerning the handling of the fruits and the preparation of the recipes. I think myself that a wonderfully attractive book could be made from this material, and hope that you will agree with me. Trusting that this will be satisfactory to you and that you will seriously consider the book proposition before you decline it, I remain, my dear madam, Very truly yours,HUGH THOMPSON,Editor, Everybody's Home.
Gripping the cheque and the letter, Linda lurched forward against the window casement and shut her eyes tight, because she could feel big, nervous gulps of exultation and rejoicing swelling up in her throat. She shifted the papers to one hand and surreptitiously slipped the other to her pocket. She tried to keep the papers before her and looked straight from the window to avoid attracting attention. The tumult of exultation in her heart was so wild that she did not surely know whether she wanted to sink to the floor, lay her face against the glass, and indulge in what for generations women have referred to as "a good cry,"or whether she wanted to leap from the window and sport on the wind like a driven leaf.
Then she returned the letter and cheque to the envelope, and slipped it inside her blouse, and started on her way to school.
She might as well have gone to Multiflores Canyon and pitted her strength against climbing its walls for the day, for all the good she did in her school work. She heard no word of any recitation by her schoolmates. She had no word ready when called on for a recitation herself. She heard nothing that was said by any of the professors. On winged feet she was flying back and forth from the desert to the mountains, from the canyons to the sea.
She was raiding beds of amass and devising ways to roast the bulbs and make a new dish. She was compounding drinks from mescal and bisnaga. She was hunting desert pickles and trying to remember whether Indian rhubarb ever grew so far south. She was glad when the dismissal hour came that afternoon. With eager feet she went straight to the Consolidated Bank and there she asked again to be admitted to the office of the president. Mr.
Worthington rose as she came in.
"Am I wrong in my dates?" he inquired. "I was not expecting you until tomorrow.""No, you're quite right," said Linda. "At this hour tomorrow.
But, Mr. Worthington, I am in trouble again."Linda looked so distressed that the banker pushed a chair to the table's side for her, and when she had seated herself, he said quietly: "Tell me all about it, Linda. We must get life straightened out as best we can.""I think I must tell you all about it," said Linda, "because Iknow just enough about banking to know that I have a proposition that I don't know how to handle. Are bankers like father confessors and doctors and lawyers?""I think they are even more so," laughed Mr. Worthington.
