CHAPTER SIX

NEWSPAPER WORK AND EARLY WRITINGS

In September, following the completion of Jim Curwood’s freshman year at Ann Arbor, Professor Scott convinced him that there was an excellent opportunity in newspaper work in Ann Arbor.

So once more Jim began to write. He wrote stories he felt people would love to read—the type of stories that he loved to write. Jim wanted to write about nature, something which would appeal to the public in a big way, tales of adventure where the women were clean, pure and brave, and the men valiant and courageous.

From that time on stories of all types flowed from his pen and his typewriter. He wrote high grade adventure yarns which were slightly tinged with an air of romance. Jim even gave detective fiction a try but found that he was unsuited for it.

His stories were mailed to newspapers all over the middle west. Detroit, Bay City, Indianapolis, Toledo and many others were on his mailing list. At first they all came back with the usual rejection slips. Then out of a clear sky, checks began arriving. He sold a great many of his stories to Detroit newspapers and to various other city newspapers. His monthly earnings now began to total as much as seventy dollars and were never less than thirty dollars.

Jim’s ambition now was burning more fiercely than ever before. His desire to have millions of people read his stories became an obsession with him. His stay in Ann Arbor at the University was now assured. Henceforth Jim Curwood dropped all other college activities, for his writing and studies were taking all of his spare time.

The little room he occupied on State Street had now been turned into a regular beehive of activity. The throes of creative composition were swarming in his adventurous blood and write he must. Papers were strewn across the floor and completely covered the space all about his desk, the top of which was covered entirely with manuscripts, correspondence and tid-bits of notes. Jim was unceasingly racking his brain for new plots and new angles and different settings.

Detroit began buying more and more of his stories and it was all he could do to continue the steady output. He was producing stories of the great Canadian Northwest, stories that were so jammed with heart-stirring adventure that the newspapers to which he sold them were selling their papers by extra hundreds daily. James O. Curwood’s stories had selling appeal. People, as well as the editors, were beginning to wait impatiently for them. Jim was eternally grateful and thankful, in fact, more thankful than he had ever been before. He had been writing for the past twelve years and now at last some degree of success was coming to him.

It was during this terrific onslaught of writing fury that Jim strayed farther away from nature than ever before. He missed it terribly and yearned to get back to it. That urge was constantly burning within him, the same as was the desire to become a writer. Fortunately enough he was writing about the great open spaces, the deep, silent forests, and the many lakes and streams, and this allayed his longing somewhat. As often as possible, however, he would break away from his room long enough to take brief walks of an evening. Sometimes these walks would develop into strolls across the rolling ridges and hills and wanderings into the beautiful glens and forests that lay nearby. Atop these ridges on the outskirts of town he could look down upon Ann Arbor as it nestled among the many silently swaying trees. Even on cold, wintry nights he would sometimes climb to the tops of these ridges as the world lay asleep and look down upon the glimmering lights of the campus and town. Here he could see the lights twinkling and flickering through the light of steady downfalls of glittering, gleaming snow. Jim Curwood loved the falling of the snow. He loved it almost as much as he did the ever glorious arrival of spring.

All through the cold winter Jim worked feverously on his studies and on his writing. His mind and nerves were constantly on edge, so deep in his work was he engrossed. Still he turned out stories that eventually found a market and that was what he was searching for.

With the arrival of spring, Jim was still engaged in his free-lance newspaper work. But the proceeds of his writings were not yet sufficient to assure his staying on at the University, so he accepted a position offered by Professor Adams who had undertaken a huge railroad statistical job for the government and was in need of a few college men to assist him. Jim was to draw $75.00 per month, with room furnished. The job was to last all summer long. As this work was comparatively easy, consisting only of calculations, Jim enjoyed doing it.

When the fall term opened Jim returned to school with over $200.00 in his pockets. He now had sufficient funds to provide himself with a little relaxation and some luxuries. The year of 1900 was to prove one of the most enjoyable and changing periods in all his life.

Because he was now better off, financially, Jim decided to take larger quarters, so he rented a two-room apartment on Jefferson Street. Then he bought a new suit of clothes which materially changed his appearance. With a pipe and a mandolin, previously acquired, he became a typical “college man.”

“As a sophomore I devoted only a little attention to the incoming freshmen. The enthusiasm with which I had entered into under-class rivalries the preceding autumn had worn itself out, or rather, had been supplanted by my interest in newspaper work.”

What with his writing, his difficult studies and the planning of his work, Jim was truly as busy a man as there was on the whole of the campus. He spent his spare time, as little as there was of it, in strolls about the campus and the wooded sections on the outskirts of the city. Here he loved to walk along slowly and take in nature as it actually was. He loved to watch the birds flit from tree to tree, to see the chipmunks, the squirrels and the various other creatures of the wild in the throes of their work and play. They always appeared so industrious to him. But Jim Curwood did not watch them merely for the thrill of it all, but because he studied their every move. Here it was that Jim discovered that he cared for nature almost selfishly. At times it seemed as if he could not break away from his wanderings in the forests and along the lakes long enough to accomplish anything else. The birds, the trees and the rippling waters entranced the young man. The many squirrels and rabbits that infested the places that man did not go held constant fascination for him.

Jim watched nature and wildlife with gifted eyes. He would see creatures of God where no other human eyes could detect them. Jim Curwood was a staunch believer that everything on the face of the earth was an important item in the worldly scheme of things.

“If I did not believe a tree had a soul I could not believe in a God. If someone convinced me that the life in a flower or the heart in a bird were not as important in the final analysis as those same things in my own body I could no longer have faith in a hereafter.”

Those words seal the case of Jim Curwood’s love of nature and of all living things.

* * * *

The sophomore year at the University of Michigan came and went almost as fast as had his previous year as a freshman, with but one exception. Jim Curwood had begun to take a keen and glowing interest in the young women of the campus. Previously he had hardly looked at girls and at times hardly realized that there were such lovely creatures about him, save for his childhood sweetheart, “Whistling” Jeanne. Those memories of Jeanne Fisher, however, were not haunting him now, for the beautiful women of the University were taking her place. Jim began to notice their pretty dresses, their hair-do’s, and their feminine pulchritude. It was the glory of womanhood and all it stood for that made Jim happy. He began to realize more and more that womanhood was probably the most wonderful of all things on the earth. He began to glorify them in his stories as he had the creatures of the wild and all nature about him.

“Then I began to understand that no matter how successful a man may be, how much money he may amass, or how many honors he may acquire, his life is woefully incomplete unless a woman fully shares it with him. As the tired-eyed factor at Fond du Lac once said, while he stood beside the lonely grace under a huge spruce: ‘No country is God’s Country without a woman.’”

One afternoon early in the fall of the year, Jim was on one of his evening strolls down a byway along the very edge of the Huron River as it made its way out of Ann Arbor. It was during the course of this walk that Jim Curwood chanced upon one of the most beautiful creatures of womanhood that he had ever seen. About a mile down this path along the Huron from whence one turns off to follow the course of the river, Jim found her. The path was called then, as it still remains, “Schoolgirl Glen.” Jim had long come to consider this particular spot as his own, and upon discovering the intruder, beautiful as she was, he resented it somewhat. He had grown to love the bigness and glory of the solitude here. From this spot a man’s eyes could roam for countless miles and see nothing but the beauty and glory of nature.

As Jim came upon the young lady she turned about, smiled, and spoke to him. Then he smiled, too. Smiled as he had never smiled before. It was not as a matter of politeness that a smile came to his face then, but because he felt like smiling at that particular moment.

All about them were massive pines, spruces and willows and many varieties of shrubs and bushes. Jim later often referred to the spot as one of the most beautiful that he knew of.

At first he was backward and shy, but when his newly-found companion began talking about nature and the very things that Jim Curwood loved so well, almost immediately his backwardness vanished and he found himself in a veritable “Garden of Eden.” Jim could hardly believe that there could possibly be two people in the same world who viewed things so nearly alike.

For many hours they talked of the beauties of nature, of the wilderness and of their own love of wildlife. They spoke of what they thought should be done in order to preserve our natural resources. Jim found himself liking this new youthful companion who loved nature as he did. This meeting between the two was the beginning of a serious romance, which resulted in their marriage on January 15, 1900, exactly six months later.

From that time on Jim found that he had to work much harder than ever before in order to make ends meet. He drove himself in his story writing, hardly relaxing or letting up. Story after story and article after article he would grind out in an effort to make a decent living. In fact, Jim was all but driving himself to the very limit. When asked why he was working so hard, he would reply:

“Why not? I have something to work for now!”

About this time the _Gray Goose Magazine_ began accepting Jim’s stories more regularly. Various other magazines, both slicks and pulps, began taking an interest in his work. What with all of his newspaper free-lancing and his magazine work, Jim was finally managing to make both of the proverbial ends meet.

At last when the school year ended and the glorious summer of 1900 began, Jim and his lovely wife began making new plans. So promptly and without much deliberation, they headed for the Big Marsh country. The call of adventure was strong in Jim’s blood once again. He was coming back to nature and the life he loved so dearly, only this time he was not alone.

The summer was wonderfully and educationally spent by just the two of them. They were constantly on the move as they journeyed from one beauteous spot to another, making sure they missed nothing. They were taking in all the wonderous sights that were available in the Big Marsh country. They loved the great open spaces where one could breathe clean, fresh air and where all the creatures of the wild were at home, playing, working and making ready for the coming of winter. That particular summer of 1900 was one of the most enjoyable that James Oliver Curwood had ever spent.

Once again September rolled around and with it went Jim Curwood to become a member of the junior class at the University. But Jim did not complete his junior year, for Pat Baker, a great newspaperman, wired Jim that he had a job for him and he should come to Detroit at once. So, with his wife and all their baggage, Jim withdrew from the University of Michigan and headed for Detroit ... “land of opportunity.” This move was to change the entire course of James Oliver Curwood’s life.