Helen in the Editor's Chair

“My brother will have them ready for you,” said Helen, “but if you want to get the most out of your sale, why not run your bill as an ad in the Herald. On a combination like that we can give you a special price. You can have a quarter page ad in the paper plus 500 bills at only a little more than the cost of the ad in the paper. It’s the cost of setting up the ad that counts for once it is set up we can run off the bills at very little extra cost.”

“How much circulation do you have?”

“Eight hundred and seventy-five,” said Helen. “Three hundred papers go in town and the rest out on the country routes.” She consulted her price book and quoted the price for the combination ad and bills.

“I’ll take it,” agreed the farmer, who appeared to be a keen business man.

“Tell you what,” he went on. “If you’d work out some kind of a tieup with the farm bureau at Gladbrook and carry a page with special farm news you could get a lot of advertising from farmers. If you do, don’t use ‘canned’ news sent out by agricultural schools. Get the county agent to write a column a week and then get the rest of it from farmers around here. Have items about what they are doing, how many hogs they are feeding, how much they get for their cattle, when they market them and news of their club activities.”

“Sounds like a fine idea,” said Helen, “but we’ll have to go a little slowly at first. My brother and I are trying to run the paper while Dad is away recovering his health and until we get everything going smoothly we can’t attempt very many new things.”

“You keep it in mind,” said the farmer, “for I tell you, we people on the farms like to see news about ourselves in the paper and it would mean more business for you. Well, I’ve got to be going. I’ll bring my copy in tomorrow.”

“We’ll be expecting it,” said Helen. “Thanks for the business.”

She went around to the postoffice and returned with a handful of letters. Most of them were circulars but one of them was a card from her father. She read it with such eagerness that her hands trembled. It had been written while the train was speeding through southwestern Kansas and her father said that he was not as tired from the train trip as he had expected. By the time they received the card, he added, he would be at Rubio, Arizona, where he was to make his home until he was well enough to return to the more rigorous climate of the north.

Helen telephoned her mother at once and read the message on the card.

“I’m going to write to Dad and tell him all about the storm and how happy we are that everything is going well for him,” said Helen.

“I’ll write this afternoon,” said her mother, “and we’ll put the letters in one envelope and get them off on the evening mail. Perhaps Tom will find time to add a note.”

Helen sat down at the desk, found several sheets of office stationery and a pen, and started her letter to her father. She was half way through when Jim Preston entered.

“Good morning, Miss Blair,” he said. “I’ve got the Liberty ready to go if you’d like to run down the lake and see how much damage the twister caused at the summer resorts.”

“Thanks,” replied Helen, “I’ll be with you right away.” She put her letter aside and closed the office. Five minutes later they were at the main pier on the lakeshore.

The Liberty, a sturdy, 28-foot cruiser, was moored to the pier. The light oak hood covering the engine shone brightly in the morning sun and Helen could see that Jim Preston had waxed it recently. The hood extended for about fourteen feet back from the bow of the boat, completely enclosing the 60 horsepower engine which drove the craft. The steering wheel and ignition switches were mounted on a dash and behind this were four benches with leather covered cork cushions which could be used as life preservers.

The boatman stepped into the Liberty and pressed the starter. There was the whirr of gears and the muffled explosions from the underwater exhaust as the engine started. The Liberty quivered at its moorings, anxious to be away and cutting through the tiny whitecaps which danced in the sunshine.

Helen bent down and loosened the half hitches on the ropes which held the boat. Jim Preston steadied it while she stepped in and took her place on the front seat beside him.

The boatman shoved the clutch ahead, the tone of the motor deepened and they moved slowly away from the pier. With quickening pace, they sped out into the lake, slapping through the white caps faster and faster until tiny flashes of spray stung Helen’s face.

“How long will it take us to reach Crescent Beach?” asked Helen for she knew the boatman made his first stop at the new resort at the far end of the lake.

“It’s nine miles,” replied Jim Preston. “If I open her up we’ll be down there in fifteen or sixteen minutes. Want to make time?”

“Not particularly,” replied Helen, “but I enjoy a fast ride.”

“Here goes,” smiled Preston and he shoved the throttle forward.

The powerful motor responded to the increased fuel and the Liberty shook herself and leaped ahead, cutting a v-shaped swath down the center of the lake. Solid sheets of spray flew out on each side of the boat and Preston put up spray boards to keep them from being drenched.

Helen turned around and looked back at Rolfe, nestling serenely along the north end of the lake. It was a quiet, restful scene, the white houses showing through the verdant green of the new leaves. She could see her own home and thought she glimpsed her mother working in the garden at the rear.

Then the picture faded as they sped down the lake and Helen gave herself up to complete enjoyment of the boat trip.

There were few signs along the shore of the storm. After veering away from Rolfe it had evidently gone directly down the lake until it reached the summer resorts.

In less than ten minutes Rolfe had disappeared and the far end of the lake was in view. Preston slowed the Liberty somewhat and swung across the lake to the left toward Crescent Beach, the new resort which several wealthy men from the state capital were promoting.

They slid around a rocky promontory and into view of the resort. Boathouses dipped crazily into the water and the large bath-house, the most modern on the lake, had been crushed while the toboggan slide had been flipped upside down by the capricious wind.

The big pier had collapsed and Preston nosed the Liberty carefully in-shore until the bow grated on the fresh, clean sand of the beach.

Kirk Foster, the young manager of the resort, was directing a crew of men who were cleaning up the debris.

The boatman introduced Helen to the manager and he willingly gave her all the details about the damage. The large, new hotel had escaped unharmed and the private cottages, some of which were nicer than the homes in Rolfe, had suffered only minor damage.

“The damage to the bathhouse, about $35,000, was the heaviest,” said the manager, “but don’t forget to say in your story that we’ll have things fixed up in about two weeks, and everything is insured.”

“I won’t,” promised Helen, “and when you have any news be sure and let me know.”

“We cater to a pretty ritzy crowd,” replied the manager, “and we ought to have some famous people here during the summer. I’ll tip you off whenever I think there is a likely story.”

Jim Preston left the mail for the resort and they returned to the Liberty, backed out carefully, and headed across the lake for Sandy Point, a resort which had been on the lake for more years than Helen could remember.

Sandy Point was popular with the townspeople and farmers and was known for its wonderful bathing beach. Lake Dubar was shallow there and it was safe for almost anyone to enjoy the bathing at Sandy Point.

The old resort was not nearly as pretentious as Crescent Beach for its bathhouses, cottages and hotel were weather beaten and vine-covered. Art Provost, the manager, was waiting for the morning mail when the Liberty churned up to the pier.

“Storm missed you,” said the boatman.

“And right glad I am that it did,” replied Provost. “I thought we were goners when I saw it coming down the lake but it swung over east and took its spite out on Crescent Beach. Been over there yet?”

“Stopped on the way down,” replied Jim Preston. “They suffered a good bit of damage but will have it cleaned up in a couple or three days.”

“Glad to hear that,” said Provost, “that young manager, Foster, is a fine fellow.”

Helen inquired for news about the resort and was told that it would be another week, about the first of June, before the season would be under way.

They left Sandy Point and headed up the lake, this time at a leisurely twenty miles an hour. Helen enjoyed every minute of the trip, drinking in the quiet beauty of the lake, its peaceful hills and the charm of the farms with their cattle browsing contentedly in the pastures.

It was noon when they docked at Rolfe and Helen, after thanking the boatman, went home instead of returning to the office.

Tom had come from school and lunch was on the table. Helen told her brother of the sale of the quarter page ad for the paper and the 500 bills.

“That’s fine,” said Tom, “but you must have looked on the wrong page in the cost book.”

“Didn’t I ask enough?”

“You were short about fifty cents,” grinned Tom, “but we’ll make a profit on the job, especially since you got him to run it as an ad in the paper.”

“What are you going to do this afternoon?” Mrs. Blair asked Tom.

“I’ll make the rounds of the stores and see what business I can line up for the paper,” said the business manager of the Herald. “Then there are a couple of jobs of letterheads I’ll have to get out of the way and by the time I get them printed the metal in the Linotype will be hot and I can set up Helen’s editorials and whatever other copy she got ready this morning.”

“The storm story runs six pages,” said Helen, “and when I add a few paragraphs about the summer resorts, it will take another page. Is it too long?”

“Not if it is well written.”

“You’ll have to judge that for yourself.”

“I walked home with Marg Stevens,” said Tom, “and she said to tell you the sophomore picnic planned for this afternoon has been postponed until Friday. A lot of the boys from the country have to go home early and help clean up the storm damage.”

“Suits me just as well,” said Helen, “for we’ll have the paper off the press Thursday and I’ll be ready for a picnic Friday.”

Tom went to the office after lunch and Helen walked to school with Margaret. Just before the assembly was called to order, one of the teachers came down to Helen’s desk and told her she was wanted in the superintendent’s office. When Helen reached the office she found Superintendent Fowler and Mr. King, the state superintendent of schools, waiting for her. The state superintendent greeted her cordially and told Superintendent Fowler how Helen had met him at the train.

“I promised to give her a story about my visit,” he explained, “and I thought this would be a good time.”

Superintendent Fowler nodded his agreement and the state school leader continued.

“I hope you’ll consider it good news,” he told Helen, “when I say that the Rolfe school has been judged the finest in the state for towns under one thousand inhabitants.”

“It certainly is news,” said Helen. “Mr. Fowler has worked hard in the two years he has been here and the Herald will be glad to have this story.”

“I thought you would,” said Mr. King, and he told Helen in detail of the improvement which had been made in the local school in the last two years and how much attention it was attracting throughout the state.

“You really ought to have a school page in the local paper,” he told Helen in concluding.

“Perhaps we will next fall,” replied the young editor of the Herald. “By that time Tom and I should be veterans in the newspaper game and able to add another page of news to the Herald.”

“We’ll talk it over next August when I come back to get things in shape for the opening of the fall term,” said Superintendent Fowler. “I’m heartily in favor of one if Tom and Helen can spare the time and the space it will require.”

Helen returned to the assembly with the handful of notes she had jotted down while Mr. King talked. Her American History class had gone to its classroom and she picked up her textbook and walked down the assembly, inquiring eyes following her, wondering why she had been called into the superintendent’s office. They’d have to read the Herald to find out that story.

CHAPTER VII

The First Issue

At the close of school Helen met Margaret Stevens in the hall outside the assembly room.

“What is my first assignment going to be?” asked Helen’s reporting staff.

“I think it would be a good idea if you went to the teachers and got all the school news,” Helen suggested. “It is almost the end of the year and most of the classes are planning parties and programs of various kinds.”

“I’ll do it right away,” promised Margaret and she hurried off on her first newspaper assignment.

Helen smiled at her friend’s enthusiasm and she hoped that it wouldn’t wear off for Margaret was clever, knew a great many people and could be a real help if she made up her mind to gather news. In return, all Helen could offer would be the experience and the closer friendship which their constant association would mean.

The young editor of the Herald walked down the street alone, for most of the students had left the building while she had been talking with Margaret.

When she reached the Herald office she heard the steady hum of the electric motor of the Linotype and the clack of its long arm as Tom sent the lines of matrices into the mould to come out in the form of shiny, hot lead slugs – new type for their first edition of the Herald.

Tom rose from his chair before the Linotype keyboard and came into the editorial office.

“That’s a fine story on the storm,” he told Helen. “It’s so interesting I can’t make any time getting it into type; keep stopping to read your descriptions again.”

“I’ve got another good story,” Helen replied, and she told her brother all about the visit of the state superintendent of schools and of his praise for the local school.

“What a front page we’ll have to send to Dad,” chuckled Tom. “And to match your good news stories, I made the rounds of the stores the first thing this afternoon and got the ads lined up. I couldn’t get the copy for all of them but I know just how much space each store will take. We’ll have a ‘pay dirt’ issue this week with a little more than 250 inches of ads and at 25 cents a column inch that means better than $60 worth of business. Not bad for a starter, eh?”

“Won’t that crowd the inside pages?”

“A little,” Tom conceded, “but we’ve got to make every cent we can. I’ve been doing a little figuring on our expenses and how much business we ought to have. We think of the Herald as an eight page paper. That’s true, but four of the pages are printed at Cranston by the Globe Printing Company with our serial story, pictures of news of the world, fashion and menu suggestions and world news in general on them. We seldom if ever put ads on our front page and that leaves only three pages for which we can sell ads and on which we must earn enough to pay expenses, keep the family going and build up a surplus to take care of Dad when he needs more money. Those three six column pages have 360 column inches, 120 to each page, and at our rate of 25 cents an inch for advertising we’ve got to sell a lot to make the grade.”

“I hadn’t figured it out like that,” Helen admitted, “but of course you’re right. Can’t we expand the paper some way to get more business? Only this morning the farmer that came in to see about the sale bills said he wished we would run a farm page and the school superintendent would like to have a school page next fall.”

“The farm page,” Tom said, “would undoubtedly bring us more business and the first time I have a half day to spare I’ll take the old car and go down to Gladbrook and see the county agent.

“Maybe I can get some job work from the offices at the courthouse,” he added hopefully.

The telephone rang and Helen answered the call. It was from a woman who had out-of-town guests and the young editor jotted the names down on a pad of paper. That done she turned to her typewriter and wrote the item, for with her half days to work she had to write her stories as soon as she had them.

Margaret bounced in with a handful of notes.

“I’ve got half a dozen school stories,” she exclaimed. “Almost every teacher had something for me and they’re anxious to see their school news in the paper.”

“I thought they would be,” Helen smiled. “Can you run a typewriter?”

“I’m a total stranger,” Margaret confessed. “I’ll do a lot better if I scribble my stories in longhand, if Tom thinks he can read my scrawls.”

“I’ll try,” came the reply from the composing room, “but I absolutely refuse to stand on my head to do it.”

“They’re not that bad,” laughed Margaret, “and I’ll try to do especially well for you.”

Helen provided her first assistant with copypaper and Margaret sat down at the desk to write her stories. The editor of the Herald then devoted her attention to writing up the notes she had taken in her talk with the state superintendent of schools. It was a story that she found slow to write for she wanted no mistakes in it.

The afternoon was melting in a soft May twilight when Tom snapped the switch on the Linotype and came into the editorial office.

“Almost six o’clock,” he said, “and time for us to head for home and supper.”

Margaret, who had been at the desk writing for more than an hour, straightened her cramped back.

“Ouch!” she exclaimed. “I never thought reporting could be such work and yet so much fun. I’m getting the biggest thrill out of my stories.”

“That’s about all the pay you will get,” grinned Tom.

They closed the office and started home together. They had hardly gone a block when Helen stopped suddenly.

“Give me the office key, Tom,” she said. “I started a letter to Dad this morning and it got sidetracked when someone came in. I’m going back and get it. I can finish it at home and mail it on the seven-fifteen when I come down to meet the train.”

“I’ll get it for you,” said Tom and started on the run for the office. He got her half-finished letter, and rejoined Helen and Margaret, who had walked slowly.

“I’ll add a few lines to your letter,” Tom said. “Dad will be glad to know we’ve lined up a lot of ads for our first issue.”

Doctor Stevens came out of his office and joined them in their walk home.

“How are all the storm victims?” asked Helen.

“Getting along fine,” said the doctor. “I can’t understand why there weren’t more serious injuries. The storm was terrific.”

“Perhaps it is because most of them heard it coming and sought shelter in the strongest buildings or took refuge in cellars,” suggested Tom.

“I suppose that’s the explanation.”

“I’ll finish my school stories tomorrow afternoon,” promised Margaret as she turned toward her home.

The twilight hour was the one that Helen liked best of all the busy hours of her day. From the porch she could look down at the long, deep-blue stretch of water that was Lake Dubar while a liquid-gold sun settled into the western hills. Purple shadows in the little valleys bordering the lake, lights gleaming from farm house windows on far away hills, the mellow chime of a freight train whistling for a crossing and over all a pervading calmness that overcame any feeling of fatigue and brought only a feeling of rest and quiet to Helen. It was hard to believe that a little more than 24 hours before this peaceful scene had been threatened with total destruction by the fury of the elements.

Helen’s mother called and the Herald editor went into the dining room. Tom, his hands scrubbed clean of printer’s ink, was at the table when Helen took her place.

Mrs. Blair bowed her head in silent prayer and Tom and Helen did likewise.

“Didn’t I see you working in the garden this morning when I went down the lake with Jim Preston?” Helen asked her mother.

“Probably. I’m planning a larger garden than ever. We can cut down on our grocery bills if we raise more things at home.”

“Don’t try to do too much,” Tom warned, “for we’re depending on you as the boss of this outfit now. I’ll help you with the garden every chance I get.”

“I know you will,” his mother replied, “but I thoroughly enjoy working outdoors. If you’ll take care of the potato patch, I’ll be able to do the rest and still find time to write a few social items for the paper.”

“Did you get any today?” Helen asked.

“Nearly half a dozen. The Methodist Ladies Aid is planning a spring festival, an afternoon of quilting and a chicken dinner in the evening with everyone invited.”

“And what a feed they put out,” added Tom. “I’ll have to see their officers and get an ad for the paper.”

Supper over and the dishes washed, dried and put away, Helen turned her attention to finishing the letter to her father. Tom also sat down to write a note and when they had finished Mrs. Blair put their letters in the envelope with her own, sealed it and gave it to Helen.

Margaret Stevens stuck her head in the door.

“Going up to school for the sophomore-junior debate?” she asked.

“I’ve got to meet the seven-fifteen first,” Helen replied. “I’ll meet you at school about seven-thirty.”

“Wait a minute, Marg,” said Tom. “I guess I’ll go along and see just how badly the sophomores are beaten. Of course you know you kids haven’t got a chance.”

“Be careful, Tom,” Helen warned. “Margaret is captain of our debate team.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” chuckled Tom. “No offense.”

“It will be an offense, though,” smiled Margaret, “and the juniors will be on the receiving end of our verbal attack.”

“Look out for a counter attack,” Tom grinned.

“We’ll be home early, mother,” said Helen as they left the house.

“I hope the sophomores win,” her mother said. “Tom and his juniors are too sure of themselves.”

The seven-fifteen coughed its way into town, showering the few people on the platform with cinders. Helen ran to the mail car and dropped her letter into the mail slot.

Mr. King, the state superintendent of instruction, was the only passenger leaving but there were several Rolfe people getting off the train. She got their names and stopped to talk a minute or two with the agent.

“I’ll have some news for next week’s paper,” he told her, but refused to say another word about the promised story and Helen went on to the high school.

The assembly was well filled with students and a scattering of parents whose children were taking part in the inter-class debate. The senior debaters had already eliminated the freshmen and the winner of the sophomore-junior debate would meet the seniors for the championship of the school.

Helen looked around for a seat and was surprised to see her mother beside Mrs. Stevens.

“I didn’t know you planned to come,” Helen said.

“I didn’t,” smiled her mother, “but just after you left Mrs. Stevens ran over and I decided to come with her.”

The debate was on the question of whether the state should adopt a paving program which would reach every county. The sophomores supported the affirmative and the juniors the negative. The question was of vital interest for it was to come to a vote in July and, if approved, Rolfe would get a place on the scenic highway which would run along the western border of the state, through the beautiful lake country. It would mean an increased tourist trade and more business for Rolfe.

Margaret had marshalled her facts into impressive arguments and the weight of the evidence was with her team but the juniors threw up a smoke screen of ridicule to hide their weaker facts and Helen felt her heart sinking as the debate progressed. Margaret made the final rebuttal for the sophomores and gave a masterful argument in favor of the paved road program but the last junior speaker came back with a few humorous remarks that could easily confuse the judges into mistaking brilliant humor for facts.

The debate closed and the judges handed their slips with their decisions to Superintendent Fowler. Every eye in the assembly watched the superintendent as he unfolded the slips and jotted down the results. He stood up behind his desk.