News Writing Part 37

Date, to-day, April 19, at 4:30 A.M.; location, 1516 Orleans Street, Chicago; cause of fire, supposedly crossed wires on second floor where fire started; loss $60,000 according to C. M.

Holmes, Jr., manager of the scientific department; persons injured, one fireman slightly injured by falling gla.s.s; inst.i.tutions whose diplomas were destroyed, George Washington University, Grinnell College, University of North Dakota, Marquette University, Dakota Wesleyan College; lives endangered, five firemen who were climbing a ladder on the rear wall when it fell; insurance, amount not obtainable.

_C._ The following almost excellent news article has one grave weakness.

Rewrite the story, strengthening the weak points.

Earl Moisley was 14 years old. He lived with his parents, three brothers, and a sister at 5417 Gale Street. He was in the eighth grade at the Beaubien school and a promising pupil.

Earl's grandmother gave him a lamb and he kept it in the bas.e.m.e.nt. One day last week the animal slipped through the open door after its master and went bleating into the schoolroom behind Earl.

"Mary had a little lamb With fleece as white as snow."

Some one in the back row chanted the foolish nursery rhyme. Earl was sent home with the lamb. Thereafter his life was made miserable. Gangs of his comrades followed him, yelling in chorus the song of "Mary" and "Little Bo-Peep."

Earl turned on one of his tormentors yesterday and blacked his eye. His playmates say he was summoned before the princ.i.p.al of the school and suspended for fighting. The boys a.s.sert they saw him marching st.u.r.dily home digging one grimy fist in his eye and muttering, "They'll be sorry, all right."

About 5 o'clock last evening Earl's younger brother went into the bas.e.m.e.nt. He saw a pair of shoes sticking over the top of a little red wagon and ran upstairs.

"Mother," he said, "there's a man in the cellar. I saw his feet."

Mrs. Moisley laid aside her washing and went downstairs with the younger son. She then told her husband, Fred Moisley, an under janitor at the city hall.

Moisley observed a piece of heavy twine tied to the water pipe.

He thought some man had committed suicide and ran outside for a policeman. Mrs. Moisley went near the stiff, outthrust little shoes, and saw they were those of a boy. She bent over the figure and fainted. It was Earl. The lamb lay asleep beside the body.

_D._ Correct in any way needful the following stories for a weekly paper:

1. Susie, the four-months-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Konick, Booneville, died last night after a few days' illness.

She will be interred at the Meadowland cemetery Thursday. Susie had the whooping-cough.

2. Mrs. Alice Rice was born in Jefferson county, Ga., on Aug. 6, 1864, and pa.s.sed quietly away last Sat.u.r.day, making her age 53 years, 10 months, and 27 days. Mr. and Mrs. Rice were married about 32 years. One son, Samuel, and husband, Adam, survive her.

They moved to the Houghton farm, near Adaville, 14 years ago, and were just intending to move to the White farm when death overtook Mrs. Rice after an illness of 22 hours, which was not considered serious until about 2 hours before her death. Mrs.

Rice had worked as busy as a bee all her years in Adaville, and when her beautiful spirit quitted this mundane vale of tears, she was rewarded with the loving attendance and affection of all in the sorrowing neighborhood. The funeral service was conducted Monday afternoon at the sorrowing home by the Rev. R. O. Tumlin.

The remains were interred at the Camp Meeting cemetery. Mrs.

Rice died of heart trouble.

_E._ Get the local and state weather forecast and write for to-morrow morning's paper a story of to-day's weather and to-morrow's prospects.

_CHAPTER XVI_

_A._ Criticize and rewrite the following baseball story:

The scribe again has a sad story to relate concerning the Sox, inasmuch as the White Hose have failed for the sixth straight time to win, and unfortunately it must be admitted that they in every way deserved what they got.

In fact, if Manager Callahan had taken their bats away from them after the first inning to-day and had buried them 20,000 leagues under the sea, securely padlocked in Davy Jones' locker, his men would have been compelled to accept a victory over Detroit instead of handing themselves a sixth straight defeat after one of the cheesiest exhibitions of the national pastime ever seen outside the walls of a state inst.i.tute for the mentally feeble.

The score was 5 to 4, and all five of Detroit's runs were donated by the White Sox, a fact which seemed to rouse the subconscious generosity of the Tigers to such a pitch that in the ninth inning it was all the Callahan bunch could do to keep their opponents from forcing on them enough tallies to even matters up so that they could start over and let the best team win in extra innings.

That ninth round saw three Detroit pitchers, Dame Fortune, Herr Billiken, Mr. Providence and all the G.o.ds of Olympus conspiring to give the White Sox the game which had been thrown away, but the whole blamed bunch of good luck deities was foiled by a couple of White Sox youngsters simply because Callahan forgot to take their clubs away from them.

It would have been a joke that would have caused a laugh all through the corridors of time if the White Sox had achieved a triumph with only one base hit, but the fact remains it was their own fault they did not do so. Their only safe hit was made by Ray Demmitt, the Tiger discard, who has not yet worn a Sox uniform long enough to forget the first use for a baseball bat.

Demmitt retains the impression that bats were made to get on with, while the rest of Callahan's bunch use them solely to get out with, and that was the whole trouble in the last round. The Sox entered that spasm four runs behind, having converted Demmitt's lone hit in the first inning into the only genuine tally of the day.

Hall, who had enjoyed a breeze all the way at the expense of the Sox, suddenly was seized with a generous fit and started pa.s.sing batsmen. After he had filled the bases with only one man out Manager Jennings yanked the philanthropic hurler and sent Dauss to the slab. Dauss was infected with the same Andrew Carnegie spirit and issued another pa.s.s, forcing the Sox to make a tally.

There was no pity in Jennings' breast, so he ordered Dauss to the b.o.o.by hatch for a spanking and sent Coveleski to ladle out the pitch stuff. The young southpaw was equally generous in intent and would surely have forced in enough runs to give the Sox the game, but two of the visitors absolutely refused to accept that kind of a gift and got out. They were Tom Daly and Ray Schalk.

For a while it looked as if Buck Weaver would have to shoulder the blame for another defeat because he blew two runs over the pan by missing a cinch double play in the fourth inning. But Weaver had plenty of partners in crime before the thing was over. Harry Lord and Jack Fournier joined him by helping to contribute three runs to the Tiger total in the eighth.

Lord's miscue was a boot of a Cobb bounder in a tight place.

Fournier's blunder did not appear in the error column. Jack simply sat down on the gra.s.s and watched a tall fly light near him in gleeful security. By keeping his feet Fournier should have caught said fly and saved the cost of Lord's error to boot.

Fournier was in the game in an effort to bolster up the offense, not because he has anything as an outfielder on Bodie, whose place he took in the batting order, but the switch did not work out just as planned. Fournier made no better use of his stick than the rest of the Sox, and gave way to Daly, who foiled the generous efforts of the Tiger pitchers in the ninth.

It was a typical Joe Benz hard-luck game. The Indiana butcher boy pitched well enough to have won with any club in the league behind him, but only once were his pals anything but dead weight around his neck. In the sixth, when the Tigers made a determined attack, Weaver and Schalk came to Benz's a.s.sistance with a remarkable play, which pinched Cobb off second base and wrecked what looked like sure runs. And it is no small honor to have caught the honorable Tyrus napping in a pinch like that....

_B._ Take as a special a.s.signment a local football, basketball, or baseball game, or some other athletic contest and report it for the following morning's paper.

_CHAPTER XVII_

_A._ Write the story of the following for the society column in to-morrow morning's paper:

The parents of Elizabeth Wallace, 24, announced her engagement to-day to Parker Maxwell. Miss Wallace's father is president of the local First National Bank and lives at 1814 Prospect Drive.

Mr. Maxwell, 31, is cashier of the First National. Mr. Maxwell and Miss Wallace have known each other from childhood.

_B._ Write the story of the following:

The details of Elizabeth Wallace's wedding (see _A_) two weeks from to-day have been made public. She will be married at St.

Bartholomew's Church at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Rev. C. K.

Tanner will perform the ceremony. The bride will enter with her father. Howard Prentice, St. Louis, a college chum of the bride-groom's, will be best man. Alice Wallace, a younger sister of the bride, will be maid of honor. The bride will wear on the bodice of her wedding gown an old Brussels lace worn by her mother at her wedding thirty years ago. The predominating color scheme will be yellow. There will be two flower girls, Jean Thompson and Helen Orben, cousins of the bride. Three hundred invitations have been issued. A luncheon to the bridal party, relations, and a few intimate friends will be served at 1:30.

_C._ Write for to-day's paper an account of the marriage yesterday of Elizabeth Wallace and Parker Maxwell (See _A_ and _B_).

Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell left immediately after the wedding ceremony for a trip through Yellowstone Park. On their return next month they will live at 1200 East Sixtieth Street.

_CHAPTER XVIII_

_A._ Rewrite for this afternoon's paper the two following stories appearing in rival publications this morning. No additional details have been obtained.

_LOSES MONEY BETTING_

Two rough and hearty farmers struck up an acquaintance at a hotel last Thursday. One was John I. Williams of Winthrop, Ia.

Mr. Williams is now sojourning in the city waiting to see if the police can recover $2,500, his savings, which he bet on a "horse race." The other introduced himself as William Shaw, a farmer from near Winnipeg. The police are looking for him.

Mr. Williams reported his loss and told of meeting Shaw.