Give Me One Summer by Emilie Loring

Author:Emilie Loring [Loring, Emilie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2021-01-05T16:00:00+00:00

“Dear Miss Barclay;

We like your story, HIGH HARVEST. You have a great theme. The denouement is a bit too obvious but with your permission we will change that. As we are not at present paying cash for contributions, we are giving you four yearly subscriptions to our magazine. Trusting that this will be satisfactory, we are,

Very truly yours,

The Editors.”

Lissa’s face was blankly incredulous, then it crinkled into laughter, though Carson could see the glitter of tears in her eyes.

“Four subscriptions! For my grand story HIGH HARVEST! It’s too—too funny! Suppose I can sell them for my travel fund? Perhaps you’ll buy one?” The sentence rippled into a shaky laugh.

“Steady, Lissa. You’ll have hysterics if you don’t watch out.”

“I? Never. Writers who get there don’t have hysterics. I’ve always claimed that success in writing—provided of course one had what it takes to make a writer—is like success in marriage, largely a question of good sportsmanship, of keeping on keeping on, of giving one’s best and trying, everlastingly trying to make that best, better. The offer struck me as funny, that’s all.”

“Will you let it go for four subscriptions to their dinky magazine? Will you let them change the ending?”

“No, to that last question. It isn’t a dinky magazine. It has good backing but I think too much of my ch—child—” her voice caught, “to let it go for that.”

“Apparently you’ve made a smash hit with the theme. What is it? Mind telling?”

“No. The idea came from a sort of back-to-the-family article I read. It may be because my own family life was such a hodge-podge that it seems to me that there is no more important, no more up-to-the-minute need, no higher career for a woman than that of wifehood and home-maker, to answer ‘Here!’ when a child comes home and calls, ‘Where’s Mother?’ It takes in everything, economics, business and government laws, a communal viewpoint, and comradeship, courage, sacrifice, and last, but not least, a sense of humor. It calls for a sporting instinct if anything does.”

“What’s the matter with that theme? It’s vital.”

“Speaking with the Voice of Rejection Slips, it has a ‘Woman’s-place-is-in-the-home’ taint which is out-of-date at present, and my story is worth four magazine subscriptions, nothing more.”

“Lissa, don’t feel so hurt. I—I can’t bear it, darling.”

“Don’t call me that! First, Madge, then me. When I saw this letter I was so excited I forgot the tender scene I interrupted a few moments ago.”

“Lissa! You’re wrong. I’m too old-fashioned to go in for wife-snitching. You’re not consistent. You said you believe that the beautiful things of life are as real as the ugly things of life, yet you won’t believe that a man’s love for you may be true and steadfast.”

“I believe my eyes, too. I was silly enough to have put you on a pedestal. Now you’ve fallen off and—and—crashed and there isn’t a piece of the person I thought you were, big enough to pick up.”

She had put him on a pedestal! She had liked him that much! She wasn’t in love with Johnny Grant, she couldn’t be.

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