The Society Editor

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 22, 2 June 1906, Page 13

The Society Editor

By

THEY say that in the newspaper offices of the -'tv men w<rk in ruts, and that the eiitorial writer never reports an i’em. ro matter ho* much he knows oi it. and that a reporter is not allowed. to express an editoiia! view of a subject even t h«*ugh he l-«* well qualified to speak. Rut on our little country daily newspaper it is entirely different. We work on the interchangeable point system. Every on? writ s items, a’l of us get advertising and jobwork when it conies our way. and when on- of us writes anything particularly good, it is marked lor the editorial page. The religious reporter does the racing niati-n-'es ir. Wildwood Park, and the financial editor, who gets the market reports from the feed-st or-• men. also gets any church news that comes along. The only time we ever e-iabh-hed a department was when we made Miss Larrabee society editor. She came from the high school, where her graduating es?say on Kipling attracted • ur attention. and after an office council had decided that a Saturday Society page would be a paying proposition. At first, say for six months after «he came to the office. Miss Larrabee devoted herself to the accumulation of professional pride. This pride was a- much a part of her life as her pompadour, which at that rime wasaso high that she had to tiptoe io reach it. However she managed to keep it up "was the wonder erf the office. Finally, we all agreed that she must use chicken-fence. She d.-nied thi>. last she was inclined to be goodnatured about it. and a- an office joke ■the toys u<ed to leave a step-ladder by ( < *sk so that she could climb up and -see how her top-knot really looked. But nothing ruffled her spirits, and we quit teaming her and began ro admire her work. In addition tn> filling six column« of the Saturday’s oarer with her society report in a town where a church social is important enough to justify publishing the names of those who wait on th? tables. Miss Larrabee was a credit to the office. For she was always invited to the entertainments at the hoir *s ot t.e rich and the great who had stationary wash.tubs in the basements of their houses, and who ate dinner instead •< supper in the evening. And when she put on what the boys called hr trot tin g harness, her _ silk-petticoats rustW louder than any .others at the pasty. <’i»e day she sud- . denly dropped her pompadour and appeared with her 1 air parted in the middle and doused over ncr cars in long, undulating billows. No other girl in town came within a quarter of an inch of Miss Larrabee’- dare. When straightfronts became stylish ME- Larrabee was a vertical mar*el. ami when she rolled up her sleeves and organized a country Huh. she referred to lev sh« as and took the longest steps in town. But with it all she was no mor-? clotheshorse. We drilled it ’iito her head during her first tw.» w»*ek- tun "so-iety” news in a eountrv town means not nicrrIv the doings of the cut-glass set. but that it means the doings of the Hapnv Hopper-, tlte Trund’e-De-.| Trash, "h' Knights of CohimLu-. the Ttuihbone Sister-, the King’s Daughters. the Epworth I.'ague, the Christian Fn leavourers. the Woman’- Belief Corps, the Ladies Aid and the Home Missionary Societies. Mis- Nelson's Das the Switchmen** annual hall —if we get their job-work—and every kindred, •were tribe, except such as gather in what *-s known as ‘•kitchen sweat«” and occasionally send in cal’s for the police. When Miss Larrabee got this into her head she began to groan under her burden, and. at the end of the year, though she had great pride in *» — profession, she affected to loathe her department. Weddings wor • her e-pechtl Ruminations. and when the firs? social cloud appeared on the horizon indual ‘ng the approach of 3 c. ? *»*s of slmwrrs for the bri.l e which would culminate in a cloud-

William Allen White

hurts at some stone church. Miss Larrabee would begin to runibk* 'ike distant thunder, and as the s-tvrui grea thicker, she would flash out crooke 1 chain-light-ning imprecations on the head- of young people, their fathers and mothers an 1 uncles and auuts. By the day of the wedding she would be rolling a steady diapason of polite, decolorize!, expurgated. ladylike profanity. When she sat at her desk writing the stereotyped account of the event, it was like picking up a live wire to speak to her. As she wrote, we could tell at just what stage she had arrived in her copy. Thus if she said to the adjacent atmosphere. ‘‘What a whopper’.” we knew she had written. ’The crowning glory of a happy fortnight of social gatherings found its place when r and when she hissed out. ‘'Mortgaged clear to the eaves and full of instalment furniture!’’ we felt that she had reached a point something like this: “After the ceremony the gay party assembled at th? palatial home.’’ In a moment she would snarl: “I am dead tired of seeing Mrs. Merriman’s sprawly old fern and the Bosworth palm. I wish they would stop lending them!~ And then we realized that she had reached the part of her write-up which said: ’The chancel rail was banked with a profusion of palms and ferns and rare tropical plants.** She always groaned when she came to the “simple and impressive ring ceremony.” When she wrote. “After the benediction the distinguished company canr* forward to offer the congratulations to ti.e new-ly-wedded pair.” she would say a< she sharpened her pencil point: •'There’s nothing like a wedding to reveal what a raft of common kin people have.” And we knew it was al! over and she wa* closing th? article with: ~A dazzling arrav of beautiful and costly presentwere exhibited in the library.” tor t-ei she would pick up her copy, dog-ear the sheets, and jab them on the hook a* she sigbed: “Another great American ps<kledish exhibit end 'd.” In the way she did two things Miss Terra bee excited the wonder and admiration of the office. One was the way she kept tabs on brides. VV? h -ard through her of the brides who c.«uld cook, and of those who were beginning 'if * by accumulating a bright little pile oi tin cans in the alley. Also she knew e brides who eouid do their own sewing and those who could no: She had the single girl’s sniff at the bride who wore her trousseau season after season, made over and fixed up. and she gave t! ' offio the benefit of her opinion of the hubband in the case who had a rew tailormade suit every fall and spring. "he s<ented young married trouble- from afar, and we knew in the office whether his folks were edging up on her. or ter |«eople were edging up on him. If a young married man danced mure than twice in one evening with any <»ne but his wife. Miss Larra-lxe made faces at his back when he passed the office window. and if she caught a voting married woman flirting Mi«s T-arrabee regaled us bv telling us with whom the woman in otiest inn had opened “a fre-h van of mo--1 ions.” The other way in whi-h Mis- E.irr.»h*e displaced genius for her work wa< in describing women’s costumes. Three or four times a year, when there are large social gatherings, we print descriptions of the women’s gowns. Only three women in our town bar* more than one now party in a year, and mosf of the women make a party dress last two nr three years. Miss Earraliee vas familiar with every dres* in town. She know it made over, and no woman was cunning enough to conceal th* truth from Mi«s Tjirralee with a -pang’od yoke a chiffon 1 rtha nr a net ov.-nlre «. Yet she would describe the gown not merdv twice, but half a dozen times so that Hie woman w 'aring if might send or*rr desrripf’on to her rich' relative* hack East without arousing thoir suspicion

that -he was wearii g the same dress year after year. Therefore, whenever she wrote up the dre—e- w-«r:» at a party we were -ure to - 11 mm fifty t> a hrndn-t -xtia paper- She could tura a breast-pin and a hom<-ii*ade point la e handkerchief tucked in the front of a good old lady’s best blavk satin into “point-lace and diamonds.** that was always goc»d for a dozen copies cf th? pap*'r. and she never overlooked the dress of the wife of a good advertiser, no matter how plain it might be. She was worth her wage- to the oflic? merely as a compendium of shams. Sh ? knew whether the bridal couple, who announced that they would spend their honevmoon in the East, were really going to Niagara Falls, or whether they w-?re going to spend a week with his relatives in Decatur, Illinois. She knew every woman in town who bought two prize- for her whist party —on? to give if her friend should win the prize, and another to give if the woman -he haled should win. And with the diabolical eye of a fiend she detected the woman who was wearing the dry-cleaned, cast-off clothing of her sister in the city. X\ hat she saw the office knew, though with the wisdom of a serpent, she kept lier conclusions out of the paper if they would do any harm or hurl any one’s feelings. No pretender ever dreamed that sle was not fooling Miss I-arrale-». She was willing to agree most sympathetically with the woman who insisted that the “common people*’ wouldn't be interested in the li-t of names at her party. And the < n’v place where we ever saw Miss I.arrab. ■•’> claw in print was in the insi-tent mi-spelling of the name of a woman who made it a point to ridicule the We have had other girls around the office -ince Miss Larrabee left, but they don*: seem to get the work with any system. She was not only industrious. hut practical. Friday mornings, when her work piled up. instead of fussing round the office and chattering at the telephone, she would dive into her desk and bring up her regular list of adjectives. These -he would • opy on three -*ip-. carefully dividii g ti e li?t s > that no one had a duplicate, an 1 in the afternoon each of the boys received a slip with a list of parties, an I with instructions to scatter the adjectives she had giv n him through the ac< •unis of the parties assigned to him—and the work was done. There was no 5-cratch-ing of the head for synonyms for ‘ beautiful.” “superb” or “elegant.” Miss Larrabee had doled out to each of us tie 1. S s - _ - -y. Ako g oi - do s not have to remember whether or not the refreshment- were “d*di. ions” at the .T<«ne.- party when he -ce* the word in connection with the viands at the Smith partv. No two parties were ever ‘•elegani’* the sam- week. No tw • events were “charming.” No two women were “exquisitely” "owned. The p-i-.ai who ■ is assigned I bv Mis- l-arrabee might -?i-k it in front . r pse it for -n e vening’s ente; ta nirent. But h* eouid use it only one*. An* with a list of those present and the a ,e th< reunto appertaining, even a t w b y could gel up a column in half an hour. She had an arrist’s pride in the fini-'vnl work, however mu«h sh* might dislike the thing in making, and -lie to sail down to ’he press-room soon as the paver wa* out. and. picking up the from the folder, she would stand reading her pag-. line upon line, precept upon precept, th*ugh e.verv word and sellable was familiar tn licr. During her first year she toined Woman’- Stat? Tre** Cub. hut «he di« rov -rod that she was Hi* onir -ea’ worker m th' club and sh* never at tend'd r s.-.-ond noting S 1 c tol«? w< that t.'o^nawvnf the warren wore whtt ; stockings and law shoe* and r-'a«’ th*ii

own unpublished short -toiiv-. and she feared they regarded her w !• - v. laercd shirtwaial ami melodramatk ■ . «.awork hosiery' with su*qfici« n and a .rm. As the years passed, and wv-iding alter wedding sizzled under her i. - i - complained i » us that -he wa- i<*gi n.ug to be ailed “auntie” in t' <* ho and that the stock of available yojng men vho didn't wear their handkerchiefs under their collar- at ’• •• dances had dwindled down to two. It.i- reality faces every girl who lixes in a country town. Then she i- left with tv-.» al?ergo visiting or to begin bringing iiem up by hand. Mis< Larrab?e went xi-iii g At I lie eiid of a. month <he wrote: * It’s all over with me. He is a uke fellow. .nd has a job doing Live Topi* - AL « . Town’ here on the Sun. <»jv<- m\ job to ike littk? Wheatly girl, ar. i tell b« rto quit writing poetry, ami hike up her dress in the back. My adjectives an- in tie Efthand corner of the desk under When Knighthood was in Flower. An idu y<m suppose you could get me and tie grand keeper of the records and seals a pass home for Christinas if I'd do you a New York letter some time? “They say these city pa; er- ar hog tight!”*