Leonard was exceedingly talented. Margaret loved his beautifully blended colors and intricate style. If she couldn’t hire him for Stein’s book, she had others in mind. Bill Scott, though, found Leonard’s art too dark and sophisticated for American children. He wanted Clement Hurd to illustrate Stein’s book and didn’t want to hire Leonard for any other projects, either. Leonard’s style might be more suited to expensive printing techniques than the color-block designs used at Scott, but Margaret was certain Bill’s opinion of Leonard’s art was based on his wallet, not his eye.
Printing costs and quality were a critical part of publishing. It was the printer’s ability to translate the art into press plates for mass production that made or ruined a book. After the illustrator delivered the artwork, printers made pressboards that alternately masked and exposed the corresponding areas to be splashed with either cyan, magenta, yellow, or black ink. If the art was intricate or used blended colors, as Leonard’s did, printers created screens that allowed limited amounts of ink to pass from the press to the page. Extra screens drove the cost of printing up. The cheapest books were printed in big blocks of two colors, which was Bill Scott’s preferred method. Even more money could be saved by printing half the book in only black ink and placing the colored illustration on the other side of the page spread.
Some of the major publishing houses had recently launched children’s book divisions, so more and more juvenile books were making their way to the bookstore shelves. Too many of them looked the same. Margaret longed for more complex illustrations, but, if she had to stick to Bill’s preferred two-color books, at least they could be unique. Leonard was talented enough to pull that off, and she had the perfect book in mind for him, but convincing Bill would be difficult.
Margaret wanted Leonard to illustrate a book about sound. The idea for a book that used illustrations representing sounds had first come to her while she was playing a parlor game. Each player declared a street sound to be their own—a car horn, policeman’s whistle, or a person shouting “Eyoo-hoo!” Cards were dealt, and if a player’s card matched someone else’s, they had to be the first to make the other person’s sound. It was uproariously fun. Margaret was convinced the game could become a picture book if the right artist could visually marry sound, art, and story. She was certain it would be a hit with children. They loved interacting with a story, and unexpected sounds kept their attention.
Over lunch a few days before, she explained her idea, and Leonard had told her that he, too, believed shapes and colors suggested sounds. As a child, he would walk around London with his father, recording the sounds of the street for a phonograph record, and even then he had imagined how sounds might be drawn. He was willing to take on the challenge without a contract. If it worked, Margaret would try to sell Bill on the idea. After their lunch, Margaret had dashed off a manuscript and handed it to him.
Leonard worked as rapidly as Margaret and returned only three days later with sketches and sample paintings. Her story was of a little dog, Muffin, who gets cinders in his eyes and has to walk around a city blindfolded, guessing what noises are making the sounds around him. This interactive tale presented the perfect way to feature Leonard’s brilliant illustrations and bring noises to life. Margaret was ecstatic. Not only had Leonard fused sound and image in his art, but he had brought the city to life on the page through angular buildings that seemed to overwhelm the little dog. His cars, too, appeared to be in motion. This was exactly what she had hoped for, but she wanted the experts to weigh in.
With art in hand and Smoke in tow, she and Leonard walked over to Bank Street. In minutes, they stood before a kindergarten class with Margaret reading the story and Leonard holding up his art as the young critics reviewed their work. Leonard’s wheels looked too much like eggs, the children said, so he made them rounder. The car horn Margaret had described as “Honk Honk” was deemed too dated and promptly replaced by an “Awruuuuugaaa.” The story kept everybody’s attention, including the dog’s.
It wasn’t hard to convince Bill Scott to offer Leonard a contract with their standard flat fee for the art. Margaret knew that his work was as vital to the book’s success as any word she had written, so she lobbied Bill to pay Leonard royalties. In her role as editor at Scott and at Bank Street, she often negotiated payments to the artists, and she found herself arguing for higher and higher amounts to keep illustrators she knew were talented. There was no room for negotiation on this book—the margins were too thin. Margaret knew there was only one way to assure that the illustrators of her books could make a living wage with their craft: she had to split her royalties with them. She offered this alternative to Bill, with one caveat—he had to publish the book in four-color.
*
As spring took hold on the streets of Greenwich Village and the flower cart vendors returned, Margaret was pulled to return to Maine and Sunshine Cottage. She invited her friends and colleagues to visit, and many did. Some came to work in the midst of Maine’s beauty and others just to frolic. During the day, everyone did whatever they wished—writing, drawing, sailing, fishing, or island hopping. They napped in hammocks, walked through the forest, and went berry picking. Evenings almost always included a divine meal, interesting conversation, parlor games, or sing-alongs. Margaret paid a local lobsterman to keep her lobster traps full, and a seaplane stopped at her dock weekly to drop off fresh supplies of food and wine.
Over the past year, Margaret and Bill had seen one another frequently. He called almost daily, and they talked about their work, their lives, and their plans for the summer. She accepted that he was unfaithful to her. She once promised Bill that she would never cling to him like other women. She knew that her independence was part of what made her attractive to him. Other women might breeze in and out, but he loved her. She was the one he called late at night and early in the morning.
Bill had gone to Boston at the end of June, and on his return, he told Margaret that he was now married. His new wife, Lucy, was expecting their baby at the end of the year. He said it casually because he fully expected that Margaret would want to continue their relationship. He assured her that he still loved her and wasn’t taking this marriage very seriously. Margaret was justifiably angry and hurt. She knew he was a lothario but had every reason to expect that she would become the next Mrs. Gaston. When Bill shared the news of his marriage, Margaret refused to see him again.