Helen in the Editor's Chair

“The judges vote two to one in favor of the sophomores,” he announced.

There was a burst of applause and students and parents crowded around the victorious team to congratulate it. When it was all over, Mrs. Blair, Mrs. Stevens, Margaret, Helen and Tom started home together.

“And we didn’t have a chance,” Margaret chided Tom.

“I still think we have the best team,” insisted Tom. “The judges got a little confused.”

“If they were confused, Tom,” his mother said, “it was by the juniors. Your team didn’t have the facts; they resorted to humor and ridicule. I think it is a fine victory for the sophomores.”

Tuesday morning Helen looked over the stories Margaret had written the afternoon before and wrote a long story about the sophomore-junior debate, stressing the arguments in favor of the paving program which the sophomores had brought out. She was thoroughly in agreement and meant to devote space in the Herald, both editorially and from a news standpoint, to furthering the passage of the good roads program.

The farmer who had called the day before came in with his copy for the ad and sale bills.

“I’ve talked over the farm page idea with my brother,” Helen told him, “and we’ll get one started just as soon as he can find the time to go to Gladbrook and see the county agent.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” replied the farmer, “and I’ll pass the word around to our neighbors. Also, if you had a column of news each week from the courthouse it would help your paper. A lot of farmers take one of the Gladbrook papers just for that reason. They want courthouse news and can’t get it in the Herald.”

“We’ll see about that, too,” promised Helen.

She had almost forgotten that she was to write to the state bureau of the Associated Press and apply for the job as correspondent for Rolfe and the nearby vicinity. She wrote one letter, was dissatisfied, tore it up and wrote a second and then a third before she was ready to mail it. As Tom had said, it would be one way of increasing their income and at the same time might help her to secure a job later.

Margaret finished her school stories after school that afternoon and Helen visited all of the stores down town in search of personals. Several fishermen had been fined for illegal fishing and she got that story from the justice of the peace. She called on the ministers and got their church notices.

Wednesday was their big day and Helen worked hard all morning writing her personals. The main news stories about the storm, the visit of the state superintendent and the high school debate were already in type and Tom had finished setting most of the ads.

When Helen came down after school Tom called her into the composing room. He had the ads for the two inside pages placed in the forms. One of the pages they devoted to the editorials and the other they filled with personal items about the comings and goings of local people.

The ads were placed well in the pages and when Tom finished putting in the type he stood back and looked at his handiwork.

“I call that mighty good makeup,” he said. “Pyramiding the ads on the left side of the page makes them look better and then we always have news on the right-hand side.”

Helen agreed that the pages were well made up and Tom locked the type into the steel forms, picked up one of the pages and carried it to the press. The other page was put on and locked into place.

Tom washed his hands and climbed up to take his place on the press. The paper for that issue of the Herald had come down from Cranston the day before with four pages, two and three and six and seven already printed. Pages four and five, filled with local news and ads, were on the press. Tom would get them printed in the next two hours and on Thursday afternoon would make up and print page one and page eight.

He smoothed the stack of paper on the feeding board, put a little glycerine on his fingers so he could pick up each sheet and feed it into the press, and then threw on the switch. The motor hummed. Tom fed one sheet into the press and pushed in the clutch. The press shook itself out of its week-long slumber, groaned in protest at the thought of printing another week’s issue, but at the continued urging of the powerful motor, clanked into motion.

“See how the ink looks,” Tom called and Helen seized the first few papers. Her brother stopped the press and climbed down to look over the pages for possible corrections.

“Looks all right,” he conceded as he scanned the cleanly printed page.

“Wonder how Dad will like our new editorial head and the three column box head I set for your personals?”

“He’ll like them,” Helen said. “The only reason he didn’t do things like that was because he didn’t have the strength.”

Tom nodded, wiped a tear from his eyes, and went back to feeding the press. Helen kept the papers stacked neatly as they came out and it was nearly six o’clock before Tom finished the first run.

“We’ll go home and get something to eat,” he said, “and then come back. I’ve got some more copy to set on the Linotype and you write your last minute stories. Maybe we’ll have time to make up part of the front page before we go home tonight. I’d like to have you here and we’ll write the heads together and see how they look.”

“Are you going to head all of the front page stories?” asked Helen.

“If I have time,” Tom replied. “It improves the looks of the paper; makes it look newsy and alive.”

Supper was waiting for them when they reached home and Tom handed his mother a copy of the two inside pages they had just printed.

“It looks fine,” enthused Mrs. Blair, “and the ads are so well arranged and attractive. Tom, you’ve certainly worked hard, and, Helen, I don’t see where you got so many personals.”

“We’re going to use your column of social news on page eight,” Tom went on. “It’s on the last run and in that way we can be sure of getting in all of your news.”

“I have three more items,” said his mother. “They’re all written and ready to be set up.”

“We’re going back for a while after supper,” said Helen, “but I don’t think it will take us over a couple of hours to finish, do you, Tom?”

“About nine-thirty,” replied Tom, who was devoting himself whole-heartedly to a large baked potato.

When they returned to the office Helen finished the last of her items in half an hour. By eight-thirty Tom had all of the news in type and had made the necessary corrections from the proofs which Helen had read.

“We need a head for the storm story,” he said. “A three line, three column 30 point one ought to be about right. You jot one down on a sheet of paper and I’ll try and make it fit.”

Helen worked several minutes on a headline. “This is the best I can do,” she said:

“TORNADO CAUSES $150,000 DAMAGENEAR ROLFE SUNDAY; MISSES TOWNBUT STRIKES RESORT ALONG LAKE”

“Sounds fine,” Tom said. “Now I’ll see how it fits.” He set up the headline and Helen wrote a two column one for the story of the Rolfe school being the best for its size in the state.

Tom put the headlines on the front page and placed the stories under them. Shorter stories, some of them written by Margaret, filled up the page and they turned their attention to page eight, the last one to be made up.

Their mother’s social items led the page, followed by the church notices and the last of Helen’s personals.

“We’ve got about ten inches too much type,” said Tom. “See if some of the personals can’t be left out and run next week.”

Helen culled out six items that could be left out and Tom finished making up the page. Tomorrow he would print the last two pages and Helen would assemble the papers and fold them. Their first issue of the Herald was ready for the press.

CHAPTER VIII

Mystery in the Night

Helen and Tom hurried home from school Thursday noon, ate a hasty lunch and then went on to the Herald office to finish their task of putting out their first issue of the paper.

Helen stopped at the postoffice for the mail and Tom went on to unlock the office, put the pages on the press and start printing the last run.

In the mail Helen found a letter postmarked Rubio, Arizona, and in her Father’s familiar handwriting. She ran into the Herald office and on into the composing room where Tom was locking the last page on the old flat-bed press.

“Tom,” she cried, “here’s a letter from Dad!”

“Open it,” he replied. “Let’s see what he has to say.”

Helen was about to tear open the envelope when she paused.

“No,” she decided. “Mother ought to be the one to read it first. I’ll call her and tell her it’s here. She’ll want to come down and get it.”

“You’re right,” agreed Tom as he climbed up on the press. He turned on the motor and threw in the clutch. The old machine clanked back and forth, gathering momentum for the final run of the week.

Helen eagerly scanned the front page as it came off the press. It was heavy with fresh ink but she thrilled at the makeup on page one. There were her stories, the one about the tornado and the other about the high standing of the local school. Tom’s heads looked fine. The paper was bright and newsy – easy to read. She hoped her Dad would be pleased.

With the final run on the press it was Helen’s task to assemble and fold the papers. She donned a heavy apron, piled the papers on one of the makeup tables and placed a chair beside her. With arms moving methodically, she started to work, folding the papers and sliding them off the table onto the chair.

Tom had just got the press running smoothly when there was a grinding crash followed by the groaning of the electric motor.

Helen turned quickly. Something might have happened to Tom. He might have slipped off his stool and fallen into the machinery of the press.

But Tom was all right. He reached for the switch and shut off the power.

“What happened?” gasped Helen, her face still white from the shock.

“Breakdown,” grunted Tom disgustedly. “This antique has been ready for the junk pile for years but Dad never felt he could afford to get a new one or even a good second-hand one.”

“What will we do?” asked Helen anxiously. “We’ve got to get the paper out.”

“I’ll run down to the garage and get Milt Pearsall to come over. He’s a fine mechanic and Dad has called on him before when things have gone wrong with the press.”

Tom hastened out and Helen resumed her task of folding the few papers which had been printed before the breakdown. Everything had been going so smoothly until this trouble. Now they might be delayed hours if the trouble was anything serious.

She heard someone call from the office. It was her mother and she hastened out of the composing room.

“Here’s the letter,” she said, pulling it out of a pocket in her dress. “We knew you’d be anxious to hear.”

“Why didn’t you open it and then telephone me?” her mother asked.

“We could have done that,” Helen admitted, “but we thought you’d like to be the first to open and read it.”

“You’re so thoughtful,” murmured her mother. With hands that trembled in spite of her effort to be calm, she opened the letter and unfolded the single page it contained. Helen waited, tense, until her mother had finished.

“How’s Dad?” she asked.

“His letter is very cheerful,” replied Mrs. Blair, handing it to Helen. “Naturally he is tired but he says the climate is invigorating and he expects to feel better soon.”

“Of course he will,” agreed Helen.

“Where’s Tom?”

“The press broke down and he went to the garage to get Milt Pearsall.”

“I hope it’s nothing serious,” said her mother. “Is there something I can do?”

“If you’ve got the time to spare, I’d like to have you look over our first issue. Here’s a copy.”

Helen’s mother scanned the paper with keen, critical eyes.

“It looks wonderful to me,” she exclaimed. “I like the heads on the front page and you’ve so many good stories. Tom did splendidly on the ads. How proud your father will be when he gets a copy.”

“I thought perhaps you’d like to write his address on a wrapper and we’ll put it in the mail tonight when the other papers go out,” said Helen.

Mrs. Blair nodded and addressed the wrapper Helen supplied.

“If you’re sure there’s nothing I can do at the office,” she said, “I’ll go on to the kensington at Mrs. Henderson’s.”

“Don’t forget to pick up all the news you can at the party,” cautioned Helen.

“I won’t,” promised her mother.

Helen had just finished folding the papers when Tom returned with Milt Pearsall.

The mechanic was a large, heavy-set man with a mop of unruly hair, eyes that twinkled a merry blue, and lips that constantly smiled.

“Hello, Editor,” he boomed. “Press broke again, Tom says. Huh, expected it to happen most anytime. Well, let’s see what’s the matter.”

He eased his bulk down under the press, dug into his tool kit for a flashlight and wormed his way into the machinery.

“Get me the long wrench,” he directed Tom.

The request complied with, there followed a number of thumps and whacks of steel against steel, a groan as Pearsall bumped his head in the crowded quarters, and finally a grunt of satisfaction.

The mechanic crawled from under the press, a smudge of ink across his forehead. He wiped his hands thoughtfully.

“Some day,” he ventured, “that old press is going to fall apart and I won’t be able to tease it back again.”

“What was the trouble?” asked Tom.

“Cross bar slipped out of place and dropped down so it caught and held the bed of the press from moving. Good thing you shut off the power or you might have snapped that rod. Then we’d have been out of luck until I could have made a new one.”

“How much will it be?” Tom asked.

The big mechanic grinned.

“Oh, that’s all right, Tom,” he chuckled. “Just forget to send me a bill for my subscription. That’s the way your Dad and I did.”

“Thanks a lot for helping us out,” said Tom, “and I’ll see that you don’t get a subscription dun.”

Tom climbed back to his place on the press, turned on the power and eased the clutch in gently. Helen watched anxiously, afraid that they might have another breakdown but the old machine clanked along steadily and she picked up the mounting pile of papers and returned to her task of folding.

Paper after paper she assembled, folded and slid onto the pile on the chair. When the chair overflowed with papers she stopped and carried them into the editorial office and piled them on the floor.

Tom finished his press run and went into the editorial office to get out their old hand mailer and start running the papers through to stamp the names and addresses on each one.

After an hour of steady folding Helen’s arms ached so severely she stopped working and went into the editorial office.

“Getting tired?” Tom asked.

She nodded.

“You run the mailer for a while and I’ll fold papers,” said her brother. “That will give you a rest.”

Helen agreed and they switched work. She clicked the papers through the mailer at a steady pace.

“Papers ready?” called the postmaster from his office in the front half of the Herald building.

“The city list is stamped and ready,” replied Helen. “I’ll bring them in right away.”

“Never mind,” said Mr. Hughes, “I’ll save you a trip.”

“Matter of fact,” continued the postmaster when he entered the office, “I wanted to see what kind of an issue you two kids got out.”

Helen handed him an unstamped paper and he sat down in the one vacant chair. She valued the old postmaster’s friendship highly and awaited his comment with unusual interest.

“One of the best issues of the Herald I’ve ever seen,” he enthused when he had finished looking over the paper. “Your stories have got all your Dad’s ‘get up and go’ and these headlines are something new for the Herald. Believe I like ’em.”

“Some people may not,” said Helen, “so we’ll appreciate all of the boosting you do.”

“I’ll do plenty,” he chuckled as he picked up an armful of papers and returned to the postoffice.

Margaret Stevens bustled in after school in time to help carry the last of the papers to the postoffice and she insisted on sweeping out the editorial office.

“You’re just ‘white’ tired,” she scolded Helen. “Sit down and I’ll swing this broom a few times.”

“I am a little tired,” admitted Helen. “How about you, Tom?”

“Me for bed just as soon as I get home and have something to eat,” agreed her brother. “Guess we were all worked up and nervous over our first issue.”

“You were a real help, Margaret,” said Helen, “and I hope you’ll like reporting well enough to stick with us.”

“I’m crazy about it,” replied Margaret, wielding the broom with new vigor.

Conversation among the sophomores the next morning at school was devoted solely to the class picnic in the afternoon. The refreshment committee had been busy and each member of the class was to furnish one thing. Helen was to bring pickles and Margaret’s mother was baking a large chocolate cake.

The class was dismissed at noon for the rest of the day, to meet again at one o’clock at Jim Preston’s boat landing for the trip down the lake to the picnic grounds on Linder’s farm.

There were 18 in the sophomore class and it was necessary for the boatman to make two trips with the Liberty to transport them to the picnic grounds. Helen and Margaret were in the first boat load and were the first ones out on the sandy beach at Linder’s. The rambling old farmhouse, famous for its home cooked chicken dinners, set back several hundred feet from the lake shore. To the left of the farm was a dense grove of maples. The picnic was to be along the shore just in front of the maples where there was ample shade to protect the group from the warm rays of the sun.

Miss Carver, the class advisor, rented two rowboats at Linder’s, and the class took turns enjoying cruises along the shore, hunting unusual rocks and shells for their collection at school.

The day previous Miss Carver and another teacher had come down the lake and made arrangements for a treasure hunt. The first clue was to be revealed at three o’clock and the class, divided into two groups, was to compete to see which group could find the hidden treasure. The first clue took them to the Linder farmyard, the second through the maples to an old sugarhouse, and the third brought them out of the timber and along a meadow where placid dairy cattle looked at them with wondering eyes. The fourth clue was found along the stream which cut through the meadow and Helen, leading one group, turned back toward the lake. A breeze was freshening out of the west and the sun dropped rapidly toward the shadows which were enfolding the hills.

The final clue took them back to their picnic ground and they arrived just ahead of Margaret and her followers to claim the prize, a two pound box of chocolates.

Miss Carver had laid out the baskets and hampers of food and the girls, helped by the boys in their clumsy way, started serving the supper.

One of the boys built a bonfire and with the coming of twilight and the cooling of the air its warmth felt good. The flames chased the shadows back toward the timber and sent dancing reflections out on the ruffled waters of Lake Dubar.

The afternoon in the open had whetted their appetites and they enjoyed their meal to the fullest. Thick, spicy sandwiches disappeared as if by magic, pickles followed in quick order and the mounds of potato salad melted away.

They stopped for a second wind before attacking the cakes and cookies but when those fortresses of food had been conquered the boys cut and sharpened sticks and the girls opened a large sack of marshmallows.

More wood was heaped on the fire and they gathered around the flames to toast the soft, white cubes.

With the wind whispering through the trees and the steady lap, lap, lap of the waves on the shore, it was the hour for stories and they settled back from the fire to listen to Miss Carver, whose reputation as a story teller was unexcelled.

“It was a night like this,” she started, “and a class something like this one was on a picnic. After supper they sat down at the fire to tell ghost stories, each one trying to outdo the other in the horror of the things they told.”

From somewhere through the night came a long drawn out cry rising from a soft note to a high crescendo that sent shivers running up and down the back of everyone at the fireside.

Helen laughed.

“It’s only the whistle of a freight train,” she assured the others, but they all moved closer to the fire.

“While they told stories,” went on Miss Carver, “the blackness of the night increased, the stars faded and over all there was a canopy of such darkness as had never been seen before. The wind moaned dismally like a lost soul and the waters of the lake, white-capped by the breeze, chattered against the rocky beach. The last ghost story was being told by one of the boys. He told how people disappeared as if by magic, leaving no trace behind them, uttering no sound. Some of the other stories had been surprising, but this one gave the class the creeps and everyone turned to see if the others were there.”

Involuntarily Helen reached out to clasp Margaret’s hand and when she failed to find it, turned to the spot where Margaret had been sitting beside her a few minutes before.

Margaret had disappeared!

CHAPTER IX

Rescue on Lake Dubar

Helen stared hard at the place where her friend should have been. Had the magic of Miss Carver’s story been so strong that she was imagining things? She rubbed her eyes and looked again. There was no mistake. Margaret had disappeared!

Helen’s cry caught the attention of the other members of the class and Miss Carver stopped her story.

“What’s the matter, Helen?” the teacher asked.

“Look,” cried Helen dazedly, pointing to the spot where Margaret had been sitting, “Margaret’s gone!”

Miss Carver’s eyes widened and she gave a little shudder. Then she smiled to reassure Helen and the other members of the class.

“Probably Margaret slipped away and is hiding just to add a thrill to my ghost story. I’ll call her.”

“Margaret, oh, Margaret!” The teacher’s voice rang through the night. She cupped her hands and called again when there was no response to her first one. Once more she called but still there was no answer from the massed maples behind them or the dark waters of the lake.

“This is more than a joke,” muttered Ned Burns, the class president. “We’d better get out and have a look around.”

He stepped toward the fire, threw on an armful of fresh, dry sticks, and the flames leaped higher, throwing their reflection further into the night.

“We’ll take a look into the woods,” he told Miss Carver, “and you and the girls hunt along the lake shore. Margaret might have fallen and hurt herself.”

Miss Carver agreed and the girls gathered around her. There was a queer tightness in Helen’s throat and a tugging at her heart that unnerved her – a vague, pressing fear that something was decidedly wrong with Margaret.

The boys disappeared into the shadows of the timber and the girls turned toward the lake shore.

They had just started their search when Miss Carver made an important discovery.

“Girls,” she cried, “One of the rowboats we rented this afternoon is missing!”

Helen ran toward the spot, the other girls crowding around her. They could make out the marks of the boat’s keel in the sand and a girl’s footprints.

“Those prints were made by Margaret’s shoes,” said Helen. “You can see the marks of the heel plates she has on her oxfords.”

“We’ll call the boys,” said Miss Carver, and Helen thought she detected a real note of alarm in the teacher’s voice although Miss Carver was making every possible effort to appear calm.

When the boys arrived, Miss Carver told them of their discovery and Ned Burns took charge of the situation.

“We’ll get in the other rowboat,” he said, “and start looking for Margaret. In the meantime, someone must go up to Linder’s farmhouse and telephone town. Margaret’s father ought to know she’s out on the lake in the boat. Also call Jim Preston and if he hasn’t started down with the Liberty, have him come at once.”

“I’ll go to the farm,” volunteered Helen.

“O. K.,” nodded Ned as he selected two other boys to accompany him in the rowboat. They pushed off the sandy beach, dropped the oars in the locks, and splashed away into the night.