It would be unfair to myself not to indicate that I rendered an adequate return for the paid me. As a matter of fact, owing to the character of the local news conditions, as well as my own creative if poorly equipped literary instincts at the time, I was able to render just such service as my employers , and that with scarcely a to my mental ease. For what they craved, more than news of a dramatic or disturbing character, was some sort of idle feature stuff which they could use in place of news and still interest their readers. The Spring time, Balzac, the very city itself, my own idling and yet reflective , caused me finally to attempt a series of mood or word-pictures about the most trivial matters—a summer storm, a spring day, a visit to a hospital, the death of an old switchman’s dog, the arrival of the first mosquito—which gave me my first taste of what it means to be a creative writer.  
The city editor asked me one day if I could not invent some kind of feature, and I sat down and thought of one theme and another. Finally I thought of the fly as a possible subject for an idle . Being young and ambitious, and having just crawled out of a breeding-pit somewhere, he alighted on the nearest fence or windowsill, brushed his head and wings reflectively and on the chances of a or a career. What would be open to a young and ambitious fly in a world all too crowded with flies? There were barns, of course, and kitchens and horses and cows and pigs, but these fields were overrun, and this was a sensitive and cleanly and fly. Flying about here and there to inspect the world, he encountered within a modest and respectable home a shiny which seemed to offer a rather polished field of effort and so on.
 
This idle thing which took me not more than three-quarters of an hour to write and which I was almost afraid to submit, produced a change in the attitude of the office, as well as in my life and career. We had at this time as assistant city editor a small, retiring, soul, Jim Israels, who was one of the most gracious and approachable and lovable men I have ever known. He it was to whom I turned over my skit. He took it with an air of consideration and helpfulness.
 
“Trying to help us out, are you?” he said with a smile, and then added when I predicated its worthlessness: “Well, it’s not such an easy thing to turn out that stuff. I hope it’s something the chief will like.”
 
He took it and, as I noticed, for I hung about to see, read it at once, and I saw him begin to smile and finally .
 
“This thing’s all right,” he called. “You needn’t worry. Gaither’ll be pleased with this, I know,” and he began to edit it.
 
I went out to walk and think, for I had nothing to do except wander over to Allegheny to find out if anything had turned up.
 
When I returned at six I was greeted by my city editor with a smile and told that if I would I could do that sort of thing as much as I liked. “Try and get up something for tomorrow, will you?” I said I would try. The next day, a Spring rain with wonderful clouds and a magnificent electrical display, I described how the city, dry and smoky and dirty, lay panting in the deadening heat and how out of the west came, like an answer to a prayer, this sudden and storm, upon battalion of huge clouds riven with great silvery flashes of light, darkening the sun as they came; and how suddenly, while clapped and papers flew and office windows and doors had to be closed and signs and swung and people everywhere ran to cover, the thousands upon thousands who had been enduring the heat heaved a sigh of . I described how the steel , the homes of the rich, the office buildings, the factories, the hospitals and jails changed under these conditions. and then ventured to give specific incidents and pictures of animals and men.
 
This was received with congratulations, especially from the assistant editor, who was more partial to anything sentimental than his chief. But I, feeling that I had hit upon a of my own, was not............