Spring Street: A Story of Los Angeles

One day the editor stopped beside my desk and told me he wanted me to write a novel about Los Angeles to appear in serial form. Seven weeks later "Spring Street" was on his desk. I was assigned to write it as I would have been assigned as a reporter to "cover" a big story. Writing a novel to appear as a serial in a newspaper is vastly different from writing one for publication in book form. "Spring Street" was written primarily as a serial and is offered now as a book in response to requests by friends and from readers of The Evening Herald. Let me say that I lay no claim to being a novelist because I wrote "Spring Street." I have sufficient pride in my profession to desire to be known only as a reporter. There are many to whom I owe thanks for their help and encouragement. Especially am I indebted to Dr. Frank F. Barham, publisher of The Evening Herald, and Mr. Edwin R. Collins, Mr. John B. T. Campbell and Mr. Wesley M. Barr, its editors. The Author. His father was dying. John Gallant paced the narrow sun-baked lawn between the porch of his home and the street. Soon, he knew, the door would open and he would be called inside. That would be the end. A sickening feeling of terror gripped him and his heart pounded in his chest. He took a step toward the door, which was really an involuntary movement. No, he couldn't go in there. The doctor was in a chair at the bedside, watching, helpless. He would only look up and say again that there was nothing to do but wait. For a moment he hated that doctor because he sat there without doing a thing. His brain, inflamed and racked by the strain, throbbed in his head. He had a distorted idea that the doctor was making a coldly scientific observation of his father's death, perhaps taking mental notes for a paper to be read to a class of medical students. He had tried waiting inside. That Mrs. Sprockett from across the street, who was with his mother, had whispered to him to be brave. His mother sat very still in her rocking chair, her head bowed, her hand pressed to her eyes. He knew she was praying. Unable to hold himself, he had dropped at her feet…