After his graduation
from high school, Howard returned to Cross Plains. His father,
in particular, wanted him to attend college, perhaps hoping that
he would follow in his footsteps and become a physician. But Robert
had little aptitude for and no interest in science. He also detested
school, as he explained later to Lovecraft: “I hated school
as I hate the memory of school. It wasn’t the work I minded;
I had no trouble learning the tripe they dished out in the way
of lessons - except arithmetic, and I might have learned that
if I’d gone to the trouble of studying it. I wasn’t
at the head of my classes - except in history - but I wasn’t
at the foot either. I generally did just enough work to keep from
flunking the courses, and I don’t regret the loafing I did.
But what I hated was the confinement - the clock-like regularity
of everything; the regulation of my speech and actions; most of
all the idea that someone considered himself or herself in authority
over me, with the right to question my actions and interfere with
my thoughts.” Although he did eventually take courses at
the Howard Payne Commercial School, these were business courses
in stenography, typing and bookkeeping. Despite his interest in
history, anthropology and literature, Howard never took college
courses in these subjects.
During the period from his high school graduation in the spring
of 1923 to his completion of the bookkeeping program in the spring
of 1927, he continued writing. While he finally made his first
professional sale during this period, when Weird Tales accepted
‘Spear and Fang,’ he also accumulated many rejection
slips. Weird Tales did publish other of his stories: ‘In
the Forest of Villefere,’ a short werewolf tale, appeared
in August 1925 (the month after ‘Spear and Fang’ finally
appeared), ‘Wolfshead,’ a somewhat longer sequel to
‘Villefere,’ in April 1926, and ‘The Lost Race,’
a story of early Britain, in January 1927. Because Weird Tales
paid upon publication rather than acceptance, though, the young
author found that the money was not coming in as fast as he would
have liked, so he took a variety of jobs during these years. He
tried reporting oil-field news, but found he did not like interviewing
people he did not know or like about a topic that did not interest
him. He tried stenography, both as an employee and as an independent
public stenographer, but found he was not particularly good at
it and gave it up. He worked as an assistant to an oil-field geologist,
and though he enjoyed the work, he collapsed one day in the fearsome
Texas summer heat. The incident led him to fear that he had heart
problems, and it was later learned that his heart did have a mild
tendency to race under stress, so he was just as glad when the
survey ended and the geologist left town. When he received his
advance proofs of ‘Wolfshead,’ he became disheartened,
and immediately took a job as a soda jerk and counterman at Robertson’s
Drug Store, a job that he despised and which required so much
of his time that he had little left over for writing or recreation.
He therefore made a pact with his father: he would take the course
in bookkeeping at Howard Payne, following which he would have
one year to try to make a success of his writing. If that didn’t
work out, he would try to find a bookkeeping position.
During the summer of 1927, Robert Howard met Harold Preece, who
would become an important friend and correspondent over the next
few years. It was Preece who rekindled Howard’s interest
in Irish and Celtic history and legend. During the same weekend
he also met Booth Mooney, who became the editor of a literary
circular, The Junto, to which Howard, Preece, Clyde Smith, Truett
Vinson and others contributed over a period of about two years.