The Eleventh Virgin by Dorothy Day (important books to read .TXT) 📕

read proof every month after the material has gone to the press. You’ve got to be very careful about that. We’re exceptionally meticulous. We can’t afford good paper, so we pay as much attention to the printing and makeup as we can.

“Every day you read the contributions that come into the office, sending back most of them of course. Those that aren’t any good go back with printed slips. If you like what is sent in in the way of poetry or story or article and yet think that it isn’t good enough to print or suited to the magazine, you can write a little note to send back with it. We don’t pay for anything we accept, so we have to be as appreciative as we have time to be.

“You also interview the people that come to the office to see me or any other editor, taking the place of a private secretary which none of us has ever had. In general you add to the dignity of the office. And of course every month you’ll have to have one or two reviews written. I dummy up the magazine and I’ll show you how to do it so you can help.”

“You’ll have to show me how to write book reviews,” June told him. “You said there were three ways, but you only told me one of them. I understand how that one is done all right, but I don’t think that I’d have self-confidence enough to write a book review in the first person, applying my personal experience to it as a test of worth.”

There was no need to say whether or not she would accept the position. The expression on her face when Hugh mentioned it told him that. He told her before they parted that he was sorry her pay would be five dollars less than she had received on the Clarion but that she would work only five hours a day most of the month.

June had a feeling that she had graduated from journalism, and mentally agreed with her father, when she set out to her afternoon assignments, that newspaper work was not a job for a woman. She almost strutted.

June took it for granted the next Monday when she set out for the Flame office that her duties began at nine. Her first eagerness for this new and responsible position made her wake up hours too early. It was still dark but there was a softness about the sky which pressed against the window, promising dawn. Too drowsy to get out of bed to look at her watch on the bureau, she lay there, watching the window. The shades had been left up, contrary to her custom, for she was used to sleeping late and she wished the first light to awaken her. As she watched, the sky changed to violet, then became sickly pale. There was a sudden chirping of birds on the neighboring housetops.

From the river came the sound of a man whistling the Star Spangled Banner, all out of tune. He was silent and the river seemed empty. Then a tug sneezed violently. A few coughs of the engine, a grating and creaking against the pier, clearly heard although it was two blocks away, and a gentle rhythmical chugging and steaming. A man called out. Someone answered. Then the boat swished past leaving only the tentative caress of the waves against the little beach; like a baby’s lips pressing against its mother’s breast when it is not quite hungry, June thought. A tender, happy sound. And she lay there and appreciated her simile until the first rays of the sun reddened the room.

It was good to live in the daylight again. Although she had forced herself to rise every morning at eleven while she was working on the Clarion, she felt that she had lived at night for seven months. It was springtime, and early morning, so she hopped out of bed, splashed through her bathing, mended a pair of stockings and dressed. By this time it was seven o’clock. Whistling almost as disjointedly as the man on the river had, she started out, reflecting that she had time to walk to the office.

Breakfasts at seven in April always taste good to you. Both the month and the hour are in their favor. Poached eggs on toast, the latter thick with fresh butter, coffee that is half milk, the paper which has the most features in it propped up against the water carafe before you. You can get such a breakfast in some of the East Side Jewish bakeries. The very sounds of the elevated, the people in the street, the waiter beside the steaming coffee urn, are crisp.

It takes three-quarters of an hour to read and appreciate a newspaper thoroughly. It was after eight when June was swinging along the strangely clear sidewalks of Fifth Avenue and exactly nine when she passed the thirty-sixth block and reached Fourteenth Street where the office was then situated.

The elevator boy looked very drowsy to June who was glowing. On the fourth floor where the three office rooms were there was a complete silence. From behind the desk at one of the windows, a girl’s head popped up.

June named herself.

“O-o-oh! You’re Miss Henreddy. Mr. Brace told me that you’d be around this morning. But he ought to have told you⁠—nine o’clock is awfully early for the Flame. I got here early today because I left a book here that I was reading and I wanted to go on with it.” She held out Ann Veronica. “I’m the stenographer. The business manager gets here at ten and the advertising manager about noon. And Mr. Brace⁠—we never know what time to expect him. Lots of times he works at home.”

After showing June into the office which she was to share with Mr. Brace, the latter returned to the business office and Ann Veronica, leaving June to survey with pride her new domain.

There were four