It would be unfair to myself not to indicate that I rendered an adequate return for the stipend¹ paid me. As a matter of fact, owing to the peculiar² 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 craved³, and that with scarcely a wrench⁴ 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 picturesque⁵ city itself, my own idling and yet reflective disposition⁶, 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.