he first Irresistible
Wedge. Back came three dollars for a single print. Rather a proud day,
that! Never before had one of my prints sold for more than fifty cents.

There were evenings after that when I meditated giving the writing game
good-by in favor of photography; and many a time since then the old
temptation has recurred. The wonder of catching lovely scenery in a box
and of watching film and print reproduce it in black and white keeps
ever fresh and fascinating to me, gratifying an instinct for composition
in one whose fingers are too clumsy to attempt to draw or paint. In
those early days of my adventures in photography an editor came very
near the literal truth when he sarcastically observed: "Young man, life
to you seems to be just one long undeveloped film."

Parallel with improvement in skill as a photographer, I developed a
working plan to insure more profitable excursions afield. My interested
friends among editors and reporters gladly gave me hints about possible
out-of-town sources of "stories," and I studied the news columns, even
to the fine type of the Missouri and Kansas state notes, with all the
avidity of an aged hobo devouring a newspaper in the public library. For
every possibility I made out a card index memorandum, as--

KANAPOLIS, KAS.

Geographical center of the country. Once proposed as the
capital of the nation--and of the state of Kansas. Now a
whistling station and a rock salt plant.

For each memorandum I stuck a pin in the state maps pasted on the wall
of my workshop. When there were several pins in any neighborhood, I
would sling my kodak over my shoulder, the carrying case strapped to the
tripod-top, like a tramp with a bundle at the end of a stick. And then
away, with an extra pair of socks and a harmonica for baggage. Besides
the material that I felt certain of finding through advance information,
luck always could be trusted to turn up some additional "stories." The
quickest way to find out what there was to write about in a town was
simply to walk into the local newspaper office, introduce myself and ask
for some tips about possible "features." I cannot recall that any one
ever refused me, or ever failed to think of something worth while.

I do not know yet whether what I discovered then is a business or not,
but I made a living out of it. Whereas reporting on a salary had begun
to be something of a grind, the less profitable roamings of a free lance
fur