Chapter 4 No.4

Jimmy Makes Good

His mind white-hot with the fire of interest, his very soul atremble with eagerness to get the gripping story on paper, Jimmy drove his plane through the air like an eagle cleaving the sky. A stiff west wind that had sprung up hurled him onward. And Jimmy climbed high to get every ounce of help possible, for at the higher altitudes the wind was almost a gale. So he reached his hangar in an amazingly short time. He ran his ship under cover and saw that the gasoline supply was replenished immediately, to prevent the condensation of moisture in the fuel tanks as the ship cooled. Eager though he was to write, Jimmy was taking no chances of getting water in his gasoline. His oil supply was also replenished. These things attended to, Jimmy turned immediately to the business of getting his story ready for print.

A taxi took him speedily to the Morning Press office in Manhattan. There he told his city editor what he had learned. And he told it so eagerly and so convincingly that that usually bored individual sat up and listened with interest.

"If you can put that on paper as well as you tell it," said the city editor, "you may write three-quarters of a column. We'll run two or three pictures with it, if they are any good, and play the story up for all it's worth."

"What did you learn from Hadley?" asked Jimmy. "Have you heard from the man you sent down there?"

"He couldn't get a thing at first-hand. Your friend the pilot is in bed, under the doctor's orders, and could not see our reporter. All the latter could get was what he picked up from men about the airport. There wasn't anything you don't have and nothing half so good. So there will be no facts for you from that source. Write what you have, as plainly and simply as you told it to me just now. I'll send you prints of your photographs as soon as they are done. We ought to have proofs very shortly."

Jimmy had not expected to write the entire story. Indeed, he had not been certain that he would have a chance to write any of it. The man who had been sent to see Warren Long was an experienced and able reporter, and Jimmy rather expected that this reporter would do the writing, and that all Jimmy could do would be to tell his story to his fellow reporter. But the matter had turned out just the opposite. Jimmy himself was to write the story.

He realized that once more a big chance had come to him. For weeks-ever since he had won his new job, in fact-he had been doing little assignments, hoping every day that something worthwhile would come his way; and now this thing had happened. He meant to make the most of it.

Altogether without realizing it, Jimmy had prepared himself to do a good piece of work. He did not understand that the surest way to write a really great story is to be so full of a subject and to feel the story so intensely that one is just bursting with it. Yet that was exactly the situation Jimmy was in. His love for Warren Long, his admiration for that heroic pilot, and his desire to tell all the world what a truly remarkable thing his friend had done-all this, coupled with Jimmy's keen sense of the dramatic, had prepared him to write a gripping story. It was the same thing that had happened when he wrote the story of the Air Mail bandit. Jimmy was so full of the subject that he could think of nothing else.

Now he sat down at a typewriter in a corner, where he was not likely to be disturbed, and got ready to write. He had been turning the story over and over in his mind. He wanted to begin it in a way that would catch and hold the imagination of the reader. The feature of the story that appealed to his own imagination most powerfully was the picture of Warren Long sitting in his flaming cockpit and being slowly roasted while he guided his plane away from the little hamlet and out to the uninhabited districts, where it could not possibly fall on a house and burn up some humble home. To Jimmy's mind that picture was even more compelling than the one of Warren Long's falling headfirst to earth and calmly waiting for his blazing ship to pass him before he opened his parachute. In almost any other case, this latter picture would have been an unparalleled feature. But to Jimmy, while it was extremely spectacular, it lacked the appeal of the other picture. And Jimmy was right. His news sense in this case was unerring. For Warren Long, risking death in his cockpit in order to save others, was a far more appealing figure than Warren Long doing something spectacularly cool and brave to save his own life.

Jimmy rightly judged that what appealed to him most powerfully would also probably appeal most powerfully to others. So he began his story with this feature of greatest appeal-the picture of Warren Long's sacrificing himself to save some humble country folk that he didn't even know. When he had written what he had to say about this, Jimmy took up the story of the pilot's drop to earth, and the breathtaking experience he had had as his flaming plane dived after him. Finally he told the story, simply but graphically, of how Johnnie Lee had rushed over the rough mountain in the dark to aid the fallen pilot, and how he had taken care of him from the moment he came upon him, entangled in his parachute in the scrub growth, up to the moment that the pilot stepped on the east-bound train.

So full of the story was Jimmy that he heard nothing, saw nothing, thought of nothing but the tale he was putting on paper. Before him he could see the scene he was picturing-see it as vividly as though he were still on the spot. And unconsciously he found himself using almost word for word the vivid description of the accident that Johnnie Lee had given him. His mind was so full of the story that, once he had begun to write, the tale came pouring from his typewriter as tumultuously and sparklingly as a mountain torrent rushes down its rocky bed. When at last he ended his story, he had done a truly fine piece of work. His tale was so fresh and vivid that it could not fail to attract attention. Jimmy, of course, did not realize that. All he knew was that he had done the very best he could. If there was any luck about the story, it was in the matter of the photographs. They were as clear and sharp as Jimmy's word pictures. And they illuminated the text excellently.

When Jimmy had read the story over and made such corrections as appeared to him desirable, he took it to the city editor. Then, thinking the latter might wish to question him about some of the facts, he sat down and waited until his editor could read the story. Jimmy was right in his guess that Mr. Davis might want to ask about the story. But he was much surprised at the question Mr. Davis put to him.

The latter read the story and then glanced through it a second time. Then he looked at Jimmy. "Where did you get the idea of writing this story as you have written it?" he demanded.

Jimmy felt his heart sink. He was sure he had made a failure. But he answered cheerfully enough: "I wrote it that way, Mr. Davis, because I couldn't write it any other way. All I could see when I tried to write was Warren Long sitting in his burning cockpit and roasting while he piloted his ship to a point where it wouldn't do any damage when it came down."

"Just keep on seeing things that way," said the city editor. And without another word he picked up the story and the photographs and walked away.

Jimmy left the office somewhat puzzled and almost disconsolate. He felt sure his effort had been a failure. The city editor had not said one good word about it. And yet what did he mean by telling Jimmy to "keep on seeing things that way"? Jimmy was sorely puzzled. But if he could have seen where the city editor went and what he did with the story, Jimmy would have been amazed. For Mr. Davis went straight to the managing editor and laid the manuscript and the pictures on the latter's desk. All he said was this: "Here is a story young Donnelly just wrote. He flew over to Ringtown to get a follow-up on this morning's A. P. despatch about the parachute jump of a mail pilot there last night. I wish you'd read it."

But Jimmy had no way of knowing this, and even if he had had he would hardly have understood the significance of the thing. He could hardly have known what it meant for the city editor thus to call the attention of the managing editor to a story before it got into type. But Jimmy would have been well enough pleased if he could have heard Mr. Johnson mutter to himself, after carefully reading the story, "Well, I guess we made no mistake in making a reporter out of Donnelly. I'll tell the city editor to try him out on something bigger than the assignments he has been getting."

So was illustrated the law that "To him that hath shall be given." Jimmy had demonstrated his ability. And as is always the case, a display of ability was soon followed by greater opportunity.