The longer he remained at his daily task the more his air castles grew. His vivid imagination gave rise to dreams and hopes of greater things. All his visions and plans were strictly private and no one was allowed to interfere with the young creative artist’s dreams. Not even little Jeanne nor his pal Skinny was allowed to pierce their sacred portals. What he felt, what he dreamed of, and what he planned to do were all sacred thoughts and now vitally important to this nine-and-one-half year old lad.
Long after the usual supper hour had been completed Jimmie would go to his room to think and to plan and to write. Many were the times that his mother had to beg her puzzling offspring to put his books aside and go to bed in order to get the proper amount of rest. Jimmie’s mind was thoroughly made up and he was really intent upon what he was working for and seeking so desperately.
For six months or so Jimmie Curwood continued with his writing of his childish though well-meant blood and thunder stories, stories which he believed were truly fine.
It really did not matter to him upon what kind of paper he set his stories down, just so long as they were written. He would pick up wrapping paper and cut it into squares, or else if nothing else was available he would write his stories on tissue paper which came in shoe boxes.
As fast as he would complete one of his “swift moving, red-blooded yarns,” he would carefully file it away as best as any young schoolboy could possibly do. Writing was in his blood and it was taking complete possession of his every thought and action.
It was only after he had completed some twenty “thrillers” that he brought the entire stack down from his room and asked his parents if he might read his stories to them. There naturally was no hesitation on their part, for they were anxious to see their youngest child pursue a career such as he was now doing. So for several hours Jimmie’s parents were silent as their “pride and joy” went on with his avid reading. That night the boy read through the entire stack of manuscripts, taking some three hours and a half to complete the job. When he had finished his father walked over to him at the far end of the long kitchen table.
“You’re going to get there, Jimmie boy, you’re going to get there. Just you keep at it!”
The boy smiled, for those few words of encouragement meant a great deal to one who wanted to be a great writer.
He silently picked up his stories, went to his room and filed them away again. Hardly five minutes had elapsed before he was back at his improvised desk to start work on a new story.
At twelve-thirty that night the boy at last put away his pencils and his papers and went to bed. Rather late for a young, growing boy to retire, but his heart and soul were really in his newly-found work. With the coming day he was to have one of his greatest childhood surprises.
In the next day’s mail came the wonderful news that Jimmie’s sister Amy, who had remained behind in her own home in Owosso when the family had gone to Ohio, was coming to visit them. Since he had not seen Amy for a long time he was indeed overjoyed at the prospects of her home-coming. Three days passed until she at last arrived. Only a few short seconds after she had entered the house, Jimmie remarked:
“Gosh, Amy, you’ve changed!”
Almost from the very beginning of her visit Jimmie began telling her of his stories and shyly asked her to help him. He wanted her to read them and to tell him just what she really thought. Sister Amy’s interest in her younger brother’s career as a forthcoming author was not casual, but really of great concern.
She did everything in her power as a woman and as a sister to encourage her kid brother and to help him in every way possible. She even went so far as to check his make shift manuscripts for the errors in punctuation, sentence structure and spelling.
Perhaps the greatest step she took in the furthering of her brother’s career was to arouse the interest of Fred Janette, great newspaperman and contributor to Golden Days magazine.
To Jimmie this “introduction” was nothing short of a miracle. To get the great Fred Janette interested in his writings was indeed a mighty step toward his future as an author.
Now with the noted journalist interested in him, together with his sister’s constant coaxing, Jimmie was at last persuaded to send one of his seemingly impossible creations to the editor of Happy Hours magazine. Amy knew her brother’s work was not of literary quality but merely wanted to see the editor’s reaction and just how the manuscript would be treated. So the hand-written story was posted and within a few days, as was expected, the postman returned it with a neatly printed rejection slip attached to it.
The feature of it all was that the slip bore words of kind encouragement to the aspiring author. For the editor of Happy Hours realized that a child had submitted the script and had judged it accordingly.
The little pink slip assured the boy that if he would keep everlastingly at it he would eventually succeed in having his stories published. From that time on his rapidly maturing mind was on nothing else save that of writing. School and work entered into his everyday routine, of course, but even while he was attending to these duties he still was thinking of writing.
To add to his happiness he received in the mail one day a letter from Fred Janette himself asking the boy to send him one of his stories. Jimmie was jubilant. The very next day Amy mailed out one of her brother’s very best manuscripts which she herself had transcribed for legibility.
Several days elapsed before the anxiously waiting Curwood family received any word on the judgment of Jimmie’s story. Eventually it came through. Mr. Janette was returning the manuscript but on the fly leaf was the following inscription:
“Keep at it, fellow, you cannot fail!”
Those words meant a great deal to Jimmie, and the manuscript bearing those words remains today, yellow with age, in Curwood Castle.
Now satisfied that she had helped her brother as best she could, Amy returned to Owosso.
From that moment hence Jimmie Curwood could not be held down in the reaching of his ultimate goal. Guided by that ever present desire to become wealthy, famous and to create his own characters on his own pages in his own stories, Jimmie Curwood probably never knew exactly when to quit writing once he had commenced. He drove himself unmercifully toward that which he desired so much. It seems almost unreasonable to think that a lad of his age was capable of such determination, but facts cannot be denied or doubted. Inspiration is one thing, while encouragement and help is still another. That which he knew so well could not be suppressed. It was there within him, germinating his mind, tormenting his soul.
It has often been said that a suppressed thought in the mind of a creative writer is the worst possible thing for him to endure. He may endure all the hardships of life that are thrown in his path, but a suppressed idea or thought germinating in his mind, is fiendish torture. Such must have undoubtedly been the case of Jimmie Curwood at that young age.
Although Amy had returned to Owosso she wrote her brother every week, sending him hope and inspiration. Fred Janette from time to time wrote to the boy urging him to keep at his work. Even between times in his writing as Jimmie would be picking up stones again or else at some other type of farm labor, he experienced thrills that he had not known before. He knew he was accomplishing something, creating that which no one could destroy.
As he continued piling stone on stone and as they began to take form, Jimmie imagined that they were great castles which held gallant princes and lovely princesses. He envisioned heroes who possessed more courage and more valor than any other earthly mortal. They fought long, hard, bitter battles, always to be victorious in the end. The developing of this vivid imagination at this early age in life was one of the direct causes for Jimmie’s rise to fame.
For the first time since his dreams and plans had begun to materialize, Jimmie at last shared his ideas with his “Whistling Jeanne.” She knew all of his fondest