Helen in the Editor's Chair

“Don’t you want someone to go to the farmhouse with you?” Miss Carver asked Helen.

But Helen shook her head and ran up the beach. She didn’t want anyone with her; she wanted to be alone. The other girls didn’t realize the seriousness of the situation. She could understand what Margaret had done. Realizing that Miss Carver would tell them a first rate thriller of a ghost story, Margaret had decided to add an extra thrill by disappearing for a few minutes. But something had gone wrong and she hadn’t been able to get back.

Helen paused and looked over the black, mysterious waters of Lake Dubar. What secret were they keeping from her? Thoughts of what might have happened to Margaret brought the queer, choky sobs again and she ran on toward Linder’s where the welcome glow of light showed through the windows of the farmhouse.

Old Mr. Linder came to the door in answer to Helen’s quick, insistent knocks.

“What’s the matter, young Lady?” he asked, peering at her through the mellow radiance of the kerosene lamp which he held in one hand.

“I’m Helen Blair,” she explained, “and one of my classmates has disappeared from our picnic party down the beach. One of the boats we rented from you is missing and we’re sure Margaret is adrift on the lake and unable to get back. I’d like to use your telephone to let her father know and to call Jim Preston.”

“Why, certainly,” said Mr. Linder, “I don’t wonder at your hurry. Come right in and use the phone. Who did you say the girl was?”

“Margaret Stevens,” Helen replied.

“Must be Doctor Stevens’ daughter,” said the farmer.

“She is,” Helen replied, as she reached the telephone in the hallway.

While Helen was ringing for the operator at Rolfe, Mr. Linder stuck his head in the living room.

“Mother,” he said, “Doctor Stevens’ daughter is adrift somewhere on the lake in one of our boats. I’m going down and see if I can help find her.”

Mrs. Linder came into the hall and Helen heard her husband telling her what had happened. Then the Rolfe operator answered and Helen gave her the number of Doctor Stevens’ office.

The doctor answered almost instantly and Helen, phrasing her sentences as tactfully as possible so as not to unduly alarm the doctor, told him what had happened.

“Sounds just like Margaret,” he snorted. “I’ll be right down. Now don’t worry too much, Helen,” he added.

“I won’t, Doctor Stevens,” promised Helen with a shaky attempt at cheerfulness.

Then she called Jim Preston’s home and learned that he had left fifteen minutes before and should be almost down to Linder’s.

“We’ll go down to the landing and wait for Jim,” said Mr. Linder as he lighted a lantern he had brought from the kitchen.

“Everything will come out all right,” Mrs. Linder assured Helen.

The farmer led the way down to the landing. The wind was freshening rapidly and Helen saw Mr. Linder anxiously watching the white caps which were pounding against the sandy beach.

Down the beach their picnic campfire was a red glow and Helen could see Miss Hughes and the girls huddled around it. The boys who had not accompanied Ned Burns were walking up and down along the shore.

She turned and looked up the lake. Two lights, one red and one green, the markers of the Liberty, were coming down the lake.

“Jim Preston will be here in another minute,” said Mr. Linder, “and with the searchlight he’s got on the Liberty it won’t take us long to find Doctor Stevens’ daughter.”

Helen nodded miserably as the Liberty slowed down and swung its nose toward the Linder pier. There was the grinding of the reverse gear as Jim Preston checked the speed of his boat and left it drift against the pier.

“Don’t shut it off, Jim,” cried the farmer. “Doc Stevens’ daughter is adrift in the lake in one of my rowboats. We’ve got to go out and look for her.”

They climbed into the boat and Jim Preston backed the Liberty away from the pier.

“How did it happen?” he asked Helen. She told him briefly and he shook his head, as though to say, “too bad, it’s getting to be a nasty night on the lake.”

The boatman opened the throttle, the motor roared its response and the Liberty leaped ahead and down the lake. They ran parallel to the shore until they were opposite the picnic ground. There Jim Preston slowed down, got the direction of the wind, and turned the nose of the Liberty toward the open and now wind-tossed lake. He snapped on the switch and a crackling, blue beam of light cut a path ahead of the boat.

“Keep the searchlight moving,” he directed the farmer, who stood up in the Liberty, his hands on the handles of the big, nickel lamp.

The boatman held the Liberty at about one third speed and they moved almost directly across the lake while Mr. Linder kept the searchlight swinging in an arc to cover the largest possible area.

A third of the way across they sighted a boat far to their right and Jim Preston swung the nose of the Liberty around sharply and opened the throttle. They sliced through the white caps at a pace that drenched them with the flying spray but they were too intent on reaching the distant boat to stop and put up the spray boards.

Helen’s keen eyes were the first to identify the boat.

“It’s the boys,” she cried. “They’re beckoning us on.”

Jim Preston checked the Liberty carefully and nosed alongside the tossing rowboat.

“No sign of Margaret,” admitted Ned Burns, “and the lake’s getting too rough for us to stay out much longer. We’ve had half a dozen waves break over us now.”

“Better get in with us,” advised Preston.

“Hand me the oars,” said Mr. Linder, “and we’ll let the rowboat drift. I’ll pick it up in the morning.”

The boys tossed their oars into the Liberty and scrambled up into the motorboat.

Jim Preston threw in the clutch and the Liberty leaped ahead to resume its search for Margaret. Helen’s lips were dry and fevered despite the steady showers of spray and her heart hammered madly. Lake Dubar had always had a nasty reputation for ugliness in a fresh, sharp wind but Helen had never before realized its true danger and what a lost and helpless feeling one could have on it at night, especially when a friend was missing.

There was no conversation as the Liberty continued across the choppy expanse of the lake. The searchlight picked up the far shore of the lake with the waves hammering against the rocks which lined that particular section. It was a grim, unnerving picture and Helen saw Jim Preston’s jaw harden as he swung the Liberty around the cross back to Linder’s side of the lake.

Back and forth the searchlight swung in its steady, never tiring arc, but it revealed only the danger of Lake Dubar at night. There was no sign of Margaret.

They reached the shore from which they had started and turned around for a third trip across the lake. This time they slapped through the waves at twenty-five miles an hour and every eye was trained to watch for some sign of the missing boat and girl.

Helen caught a flash of white just as the searchlight reached the end of its arc.

“Wait!” she cried. “I saw something far to the right.”

Preston slapped the wheel of the Liberty over and the speedboat roared away in the direction Helen pointed, its questing searchlight combing the waves.

“There it is again,” Helen cried and pointed straight ahead where they could discern some object half hidden by the waves.

“That’s one of my boats,” muttered old Mr. Linder as they drew nearer, “but it doesn’t look like there was anyone in it.”

“Don’t, don’t say that!” cried Helen. “There must be someone there. Margaret must be in it!”

In her heart she knew Mr. Linder was right. The boat was rolling in the choppy waves and there was no one visible.

“It’s half full of water,” exclaimed Ned Burns as they drew nearer and Jim Preston throttled down the Liberty and eased in the clutch.

Helen pushed them aside and stared at the rowboat, fully revealed in the glaring rays of the searchlight. Tragedy was dancing on the waters of Lake Dubar that night, threatening to write an indelible chapter on the hearts of Helen and her classmates for there was no sign of Margaret in the boat.

“Maybe she shoved the boat out into the lake and hid in the woods,” said Ned Burns.

“She wouldn’t do that,” protested Helen.

They edged nearer the rowboat, Preston handling the Liberty with care lest the waves created by the boat’s powerful propeller capsize the smaller boat.

“There’s something or someone in the back end,” cried Ned Burns, who was three or four inches taller than anyone else in the boat.

Helen stood on tip-toe.

“It’s Margaret,” she cried. “Something’s wrong. It looks like she’s asleep.”

But sleep in a water-logged rowboat in the middle of Lake Dubar was out of the question and Helen realized instantly that something unusual had happened to Margaret, something which would explain the whole joke which had turned out to be such a ghastly nightmare.

Jim Preston eased the Liberty alongside the rowboat and Mr. Linder reached down and picked Margaret up. There was a dark bruise over her left eye and her clothes were soaked.

The boatman found an old blanket in one of the lockers and they wrapped Margaret in it and pillowed her head in Helen’s lap.

Margaret’s eyes were closed tightly but she was breathing slowly and her pulse was irregular.

“Hurry,” Helen whispered to Jim Preston. “Head for Linder’s. Her father will be there by this time.”

The boatman sensed the alarm in Helen’s words and he jerked open the throttle of the Liberty and sent the boat racing through the night. In less than five minutes they were slowing down for the pier. The lights of a car were at the shore end of the landing and someone with an electric torch was awaiting their arrival. It was Doctor Stevens, pacing along the planks of the landing stage.

“Have you found Margaret?” he cried as the Liberty sidled up to the pier.

“Got her right here,” replied Jim Preston, “but she’s got a bad bump on her head.”

Doctor Stevens jumped into the boat and turned his flashlight on Margaret’s face. Helen saw his lips tighten into a thin straight line. He felt her pulse.

“Run ahead,” he told Ned Burns, “and tell Mother Linder to open one of those spare beds of hers and get me plenty of hot water.”

He stooped and picked Margaret up in his arms, carrying her like a baby. Mr. Linder hurried ahead to light the way.

Helen stopped to talk with Jim Preston for a moment.

“I think you’d better take the class home,” she said. “There’s nothing more they can do here.”

“Will you go back with them now?” asked the boatman.

“No, I’m going to stay here tonight. I’ll phone mother.”

Helen turned and ran toward the farmhouse. Inside there was an air of quiet, suppressed activity.

Doctor Stevens had carried Margaret into the large downstairs bedroom which Mother Linder reserved for company occasions. Two kerosene lamps on a table beside the bed gave a rich light which softened the pallor of Margaret’s cheeks.

Doctor Stevens was busy with an injection from a hypodermic needle, working as though against time. Tragedy had danced on the tips of the waves a few minutes earlier but how close it came to entering the farmhouse only Doctor Stevens knew at that hour for Margaret’s strength, sapped by the terrifying experience on the lake, was near the breaking point and only the injection of a strong heart stimulant saved her life.

Two hours later, hours which had been ages long to Helen as she sat beside the bed with the doctor, Margaret opened her eyes.

“Don’t talk, Marg,” begged Helen. “Everything is all right. You’re in a bedroom at the Linders and your father is here with you.”

Margaret nodded slightly and closed her eyes. It was another hour before she moved again and when she did Mother Linder was at hand with a steaming bowl of chicken broth. The nourishing food plus the hour of calm sleep had partially restored Margaret’s strength and when she had finished the broth she sat up in bed.

“I’ve been such a little fool,” she said, but her father patted her hand.

“Don’t apologize for what’s happened,” he said. “We’re just supremely happy to have you here,” his voice so low that only Margaret and Helen heard him.

“I thought it would be a good joke to disappear when Miss Carver started telling the ghost story,” explained Margaret. “I got the boat out into the lake without anyone seeing me and let it drift several hundred feet. When I tried to put the oars in the locks I stumbled, dropped them overboard and that’s the last I knew, except that for hours I was falling, falling, falling, and always there was the noise of the waves.”

Margaret slipped back into a deep, restful sleep when she had finished her story. Helen, worn by the hours of tension, slid out of her chair and onto the floor, and when Doctor Stevens picked her up she was sound asleep.

CHAPTER X

Behind the Footlights

By the first of the following week the near tragedy of the picnic seemed only a terrible nightmare to Helen and Margaret and they devoted all of their extra time to helping Tom get out the next edition of the Herald.

Monday morning’s mail brought a long letter from Helen’s father, a letter in which he praised them warmly for their first edition of the Herald. He added that he had recovered from the fatigue of his long trip into the southwest and was feeling much stronger and a great deal more cheerful. The newsy letter brightened the whole atmosphere of the Blair home and for the first time since their father had left, Tom and Helen saw their mother like her old self, smiling, happy and humming little tunes as she worked about the house.

Events crowded one on another as the school year neared its close. There were final examinations, the junior-senior banquet, the annual sophomore party and finally, graduation exercises.

The seniors had been rehearsing their play, “The Spell of the Image,” for a month and for the final week had engaged a special dramatic instructor from Cranston to put the finishing touches on the cast. Helen had read the play several times. It was a comedy-drama concerning the finding of an ancient and valuable string of pearls in an old image. It had action, mystery and romance and she thrilled when she thought that in two more years she would be in her own class play.

The dramatic instructor arrived. She was Anne Weeks, a slender, dark-haired girl of 25 who had attended the state university and majored in dramatics. Every boy in high school promptly thought he was in love with her.

The seniors rehearsed their parts every spare hour and every evening. The play was to go on Thursday night with the graduation exercises Friday evening.

Dress rehearsal was called for Tuesday and Helen went down to the opera house to peek in and see how it was going. She found a disconsolate cast sitting around the stage, looking gloomily at Miss Weeks.

“This looks more like a party of mourners than a play practice,” observed Helen.

“It’s just about that bad,” replied Miss Weeks. “Sarah Jacobs has come down with a severe cold and can’t talk, which leaves us in a fine pickle.”

“Won’t she be able to go on Thursday night?”

“It will be at least a week before she’ll be able to use her voice for a whole evening,” Miss Weeks said. “In the meantime, we’ve got to find another girl, about Sarah’s size, to play her part and every member of the senior class is in the play now.”

She stopped suddenly and looked at Helen.

“You’re about Sarah’s size,” she mused, “and you’re blonde and you have blue eyes. You’ll do, Helen.”

“Do for what?” asked the astounded Helen.

“Why, for Sarah’s part,” exclaimed Miss Weeks. “Come now, hurry up and get into Sarah’s costume,” and she pointed to a dainty colonial dress which the unfortunate Sarah was to have worn in the prologue.

“But I don’t know Sarah’s part well enough,” said Helen. “I’ve only read the play twice and then just for fun.”

“You’ll catch on,” said Miss Weeks, “if you’re half as smart as I think you are.”

“Go on, Helen,” urged the seniors. “Help us out. We’ve got to put the play across or we’ll never have enough money to pay Miss Weeks.”

“Now you know why I’m so anxious for you to take the part,” smiled the play instructor.

“I’ll do my best,” promised Helen, gathering the costume under her arm and hurrying toward the girls’ dressing room.

Ten minutes later she emerged as a dainty colonial dame. Miss Weeks stared hard at her and then smiled an eminently satisfactory smile.

“Now if she can only get the lines in two nights,” she whispered to herself.

Helen’s reading of the play had given her a thorough understanding of the action and they went through the prologue without a slip. Scenery was shifted rapidly and the stage changed from a colonial ballroom to a modern garden scene. Costumes kept up with the scenery and when the members of the cast reappeared on the stage they were dressed in modern clothes.

Helen poured over the pages of the play book and because she had only a minor part in the first act, got through it nicely. The second act was her big scene and she was decidedly nervous when it came time for her cue. One of the seniors was to make love to her and she didn’t especially like him. But the play was the thing and the seniors certainly did need someone to take the vacant part.

She screwed up her courage and played the rôle for all it was worth. Once she forgot her lines but she managed to fake a little conversation and they got back to the regular lines without trouble.

When the curtain was rung down on the third act Miss Weeks stepped out of the orchestra pit where she had been directing the changes in minor details of the action and came over to Helen.

“You’re doing splendidly,” she told the young editor of the Herald. “Don’t worry about lines. Read them over thoroughly sometime tomorrow and we’ll put the finishing touches on tomorrow night.”

When Helen reached home Tom had returned from the office, his work done for the night.

“Thought you were just going down the street to see how play practice was coming?” he said.

“I did,” Helen replied, “and I’m so thrilled, Tom. Sarah Jacobs, who has the juvenile lead in the play is ill with a sore throat and Miss Weeks asked me to take the part.”

“Are you going to?”

“I have,” smiled Helen. “That’s where I’ve been. Rehearsing for the play Thursday night.”

“Well, you’re a fine editor,” growled Tom. “How am I going to get out the paper?”

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about copy,” Helen assured him. “Margaret has half a dozen stories to turn in tomorrow noon and I’ll have all of mine written by supper time. And I’ll do my usual work Thursday afternoon.”

“I was just kidding,” grinned Tom. “I think it’s great that Miss Weeks picked you to fill in during the emergency. Quite a compliment, I say.”

Helen’s mother, who had been across the street at the Stevens’, came home and Helen had to tell her story over again.

“What about your costumes?” asked her mother.

“The class rents the colonial dress for the prologue,” explained Helen, “and for the other acts Miss Weeks is going to loan me some smart frocks from her own wardrobe. We’re practically the same size.”

“What a break for you,” Tom laughed. “You’ll be the smartest dressed girl in the class if I know anything about Miss Weeks.”

“Which you don’t!” retorted his sister.

Helen’s regular Wednesday morning round of news gathering took her to the depot to meet the nine forty-five and she found the agent waiting.

“Remember I promised you a story this week?” he said.

“I’m ready to take it,” Helen smiled. “What we want is news, more news and then more news.”

“This is really a good story,” the railroad man assured her. “Wait until you see the nine forty-five.”

“What’s the matter? Is it two or three hours late?”

“It will be in right on time,” the agent promised.

Helen sat down on a box on the platform to await the arrival of the morning local. Resting there in the warm sunshine, she pulled her copy of the play book out of her pocket and read the second act, with her big scene, carefully. The words were natural enough and she felt that she would have little trouble remembering them.

She glanced at the depot clock. It was nine forty. The local should be whistling for the crossing down the valley. She looked in the direction from which the train was coming. There was no sign of smoke and she knew it would be late.

She had picked up her play book and turned to the third act when a mellow chime echoed through the valley. It was like a locomotive whistle and yet unlike one.

“New whistle on the old engine?” Helen asked the agent.

“More than that,” he grinned.

The Herald’s editor watched for the train to swing into sight around a curve but instead of the black, stubby snout of the regular passenger engine, a train of three cars, seemingly moving without a locomotive, appeared and rolled smoothly toward the station.

As it came nearer Helen could hear the low roar of a powerful gasoline engine, which gradually dropped to a sputtering series of coughs as the three car train drew abreast the station.

“Latest thing in local trains,” exclaimed the agent. “It’s a gas-electric outfit with the motive power in the front end of the first car. Fast, clean and smooth and it’s economical to run. Don’t take a fireman.”

Helen jotted down hasty notes. Everyone in the town and countryside would be interested in seeing and reading about the new train.

The agent gave Helen a hand into the cab where the engineer obligingly explained the operation of the gas-electric engine.

The conductor called “All aboo-ord,” and Helen climbed down out of the cab.

The gasoline engine sputtered as it took up the load of starting the train. When the cars were once under way, it settled down to a steady rumble and the train picked up speed rapidly and rolled out of town on its way to the state capital.

“What do you think of it?” asked the agent.

“It’s certainly a fine piece of equipment,” said Helen, “but I hate to see the old steam engines go. There’s something much more romantic about them than these new trains.”

“Oh, we’ll have steam on the freight trains,” the agent hastened to add. “Give us a good write up.”

“I will,” Helen promised as she started for the Herald office to write her story of the passing of the steam passenger trains on the branch line.

Margaret came in with a handful of school stories she had written during an assembly hour.

“Congratulations,” she said to Helen. “I’ve just heard about your part. You’ll put it across.”

“I’m glad you think so, Marg, for I’d hate to make a fizzle of it.”

Helen finished writing her copy for the paper that afternoon after school and before she went home to supper with Tom wrote the headlines for the main stories on page one.

“Did you write a story about the sophomore picnic and what happened to Margaret?” asked Tom.

“It’s with the copy I just put on your machine,” Helen replied. “Everyone knows something about it and of course there is a lot of talk. I’ve seen Doctor Stevens and Margaret and they both agree that a story is necessary and that the simple truth is the best thing to say with no apologies and nothing covered up.”

“Doc Stevens is a brick,” exclaimed Tom. “Most men would raise the very dickens if such a story were printed but it will stop idle talk which is certainly much worse than having the truth known.”

“That’s the way he feels,” Helen said.

Margaret came over after supper to go down to the opera house with Helen for play practice.

“I’m getting almost as big a thrill out of it as Helen,” she told Mrs. Blair, “only I wouldn’t be able to put it across and Helen can.”

Miss Weeks had brought three dresses for Helen to wear, one for each act in the play. They were dainty, colorful frocks that went well with Helen’s blondness.

The stage was set with all of the properties for the prologue and Helen hastened into the girl’s dressing room to put on her colonial costume. When she returned to the stage, Miss Weeks was addressing the cast.