Helen in the Editor's Chair

“Remember,” she warned them, “that this is the last rehearsal. Everything is just as it will be tomorrow night. Imagine the audience is here tonight. Play up to them.”

The main curtain was dropped, the house lights went off and the battery of brilliant electrics in the footlights blazed.

The curtain moved slightly; then went up smoothly and disappeared in the darkness above the stage. The play was on.

The prologue went smoothly and without a mistake and when the curtain dropped the stage became a scene of feverish activity.

“Five minutes to change,” Miss Weeks warned them as they went to their dressing rooms.

For the first act Helen was to wear a white sport dress with a blazing red scarf knotted loosely around her neck. She wiggled into her outfit, brushed her hair with deft hands, dabbed fresh powder on her cheeks, touched up her lips with scarlet and was ready for her cue. She said her lines with an ease and clearness that surprised even herself and was back in the wings and on her way to the dressing room almost before she knew it.

In the second act Helen had her big part and Miss Weeks had provided a black, velvet semiformal afternoon gown. It was fashioned in plain, clinging lines, caught around the waist with a single belt of braided cloth of gold and with the neckline trimmed in the same material. Golden slippers and hose and one bracelet, a heavy, imitation gold band, completed the accessories.

Between acts Miss Weeks came into see how the costume fitted.

“Why, Helen,” she exclaimed. “You’re gorgeous – beautiful. Every boy in town will be crazy about you.”

“I’ll worry about that later,” Helen replied. “But I’m so glad you think I look all right.”

“You’re perfectly adorable.”

The praise from Miss Weeks buoyed Helen with an inner courage that made her fairly sparkle and she played her part for all it was worth. Again she forgot her lines but she managed to escape by faking conversation.

When the rehearsal was over, Margaret hastened to the stage.

“You’ll be the hit of the show,” she whispered to Helen. “And think of it, one of the sophomores running away with the seniors play.”

“But I don’t intend to do that,” Helen replied. “I’m only here to help them out. Besides, I may forget my lines and make some terrible mistake tomorrow night.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Margaret insisted, as they left the theater.

Thursday was Helen’s busy day. Final examinations for two periods in the morning and then to the office after lunch to help Tom fold and mail the week’s edition of the Herald.

Tom had put the two pages for the last run on the press before going home for lunch so when they returned the press was ready for the afternoon’s work.

Advertising had not been quite as heavy as the first week and Tom had used every line of copy Helen had written, but the paper looked clean and readable.

Helen stacked the papers on the makeup table and started folding. When Tom finished the press run he folded while Helen started stamping the names of the subscribers on the papers. By four o’clock every paper was in the postoffice and half an hour later they were ready to call it a day and lock up the office.

When Helen reached home her mother made her go to her room and rest for an hour before supper.

They were eating when Margaret hurried in.

“Here are your tickets,” she told Mrs. Blair. “I managed to get them exchanged so we’ll all be together.”

“But I thought you had decided not to go to the play?” Helen said to her mother.

“That was before you had a part in it,” smiled Mrs. Blair.

“Where are you going to sit?”

“You don’t want to know,” put in Tom. “If you did, it would make you nervous. It’s bad enough to know that we’ll be there.”

The cast had been called to meet on the stage at seven-fifteen for last minute instructions. The curtain was at eight-fifteen and that would give them an hour to dress and get into makeup.

Miss Weeks had little to say when she faced the group of seniors and the lone sophomore.

“Remember that this is no different from last night’s rehearsal,” she told them. “Play up to each other. If you forget a few lines, fake the conversation until you can get back to your cues. You will disappoint me greatly if you don’t put on the best senior play ever given in Rolfe.”

Then they were swept away in the rush of last minute preparations for the first call. The girl’s dressing room was filled with the excited chatter of a dozen girls and the air was thick with the smell of grease paint and powder. Colonial costumes came out of the large wardrobe which filled one side of the room and there was the crisp rustle of silk as the girls donned their costumes. Miss Weeks moved through the room, adding a touch of makeup here and taking off a bit where some over-zealous young actress had been too enthusiastic.

“Ten minutes,” Miss Weeks warned the girls. “Everyone out and on the stage.”

There was a general checkup on costumes and stage properties. Through the heavy curtain Helen heard the high school orchestra swing into the overture. The electrician moved the rheostat which dimmed the house lights. The banks of electrics in the flies about the stage awoke into glaring brilliance as the overture reached its crescendo. The stage was very quiet. Everyone was ready for the curtain.

All eyes were on Miss Weeks and Helen felt a last second flutter of her heart. In another second or two she would be in the full glare of the footlights. She was thankful that she had only a few lines in the prologue. It would give her time to gain a stage composure and prepare for her big scene in the second act.

Miss Weeks’ hand moved. The man at the curtain shifted and it started slowly upward. Helen blinked involuntarily as she faced the full glare of the footlights. Beyond them she could see only a sea of faces, extending row on row toward the back of the theater. Somewhere out there her mother and Tom would be watching her. And with them would be Margaret and her parents.

The play was on and Helen forgot her first nervousness. Dainty colonial dames moved about the stage and curtsied before gallant white-wigged gentlemen. The prologue was short but colorful. Just enough to reveal that a precious string of pearls had been hidden in the ugly little image which reposed so calmly on a pedestal.

As the curtain descended, a wave of applause reached the stage. It was ardent and prolonged and Miss Weeks motioned for the cast to remain in their places. The curtain ascended half way and the cast curtsied before it descended again.

“You’re doing splendidly,” Miss Weeks told them. “Now everyone to the dressing rooms to change for the first act. Be back on the stage ready to go in five minutes.”

The girls flocked to the dressing room. Colonial costumes disappeared and modern dresses took their place. Helen slipped into her white sport outfit with the scarlet scarf. Her cheeks burned with the excitement of the hour. She dabbed her face with a powder puff and returned to the stage. The scenery had been shifted for the first act and the curtain went up on time to the second.

Helen felt much easier. Her first feeling of stage fright had disappeared and she knew she was the master of her own emotions. She refused to think of the possibility of forgetting her lines and resolved to put herself into the character she was playing and do and act in the coming situations, as that character would do.

Helen was on the stage only a few minutes during the first act and she had ample time to change for the second. The dressing room was almost deserted and she took her time. The heavy, black velvet dress Miss Weeks had loaned her was entrancing in its rich beauty and distinctiveness.

She combed her blond hair until it looked like burnished gold. Then she pulled it back and caught it at the nape of her neck. It was the most simple hair dress possible but the most effective in its sheer simplicity.

Other girls crowded into the room. The first act was over. Miss Weeks came in and Helen stood up.

“Wonderful, Helen, wonderful,” murmured the instructor, but not so loud that the other girls would hear.

There was the call for the second act and Helen went onto the stage. The senior she played opposite came up.

“All set?” he asked.

Helen smiled, just a bit grimly, for she was determined to play her part for all it was worth.

The orchestra stopped playing and the curtain slid upward. She heard her cue and walked into the radiance of the lights. She heard the senior, her admirer in the play, talking to her. He was telling her of his recent adventures and how, at the end of a long, moonlit trail, he had finally come upon the girl of his dreams.

Then she heard herself replying, protesting that there was no such thing as love at first sight, but that ardent young Irish adventurer refused no for an answer and Helen backed away from him.

She heard a warning hiss from the wings but it was too late. She walked backwards into a pedestal with a vase of flowers.

There was a sudden crash of the falling pedestal and the tinkle of breaking glass.

The audience roared with laughter.

Helen was stunned for the moment. In her chance to make good in high school dramatics she had clumsily backed into the stand and upset it, breaking the vase. Tears welled into her eyes and her lips trembled. The senior was staring at her, too surprised to talk.

The laughter continued, and Helen seized the only chance for escape. Could she make it appear that the accident was a part of the play, a deliberate bit of comedy?

“Smile,” she whispered to the senior. “We can make it look like a part of the play. Follow my cue.” He nodded slightly to show that he understood.

The laughter subsided enough for them to continue their lines and Helen managed to smile. She hoped it wouldn’t look too forced.

“Look what you made me do,” she said, pointing at the wreckage of the vase.

“Sorry,” smiled the senior. “I’m just that way about you.”

Then they swung back into the lines of the play and three minutes later Helen was again in the wings.

Miss Weeks was waiting for her and Helen expected a sharp criticism.

“Supreme comedy,” congratulated the dramatic instructor. “How did you happen to think of that?”

“But I didn’t think of it,” protested Helen. “It was an accident. I was scared to death.”

Miss Weeks stared at her hard.

“Well,” she commented, “you certainly carried it off splendidly. It was the best comedy touch of the show.”

The third act went on and then “The Spell of the Image” was over. The curtain came down on the final curtain call. The orchestra blared as the audience left the hall while parents and friends trooped onto the stage to congratulate the members of the cast.

Helen suddenly felt very tired and there was a mist in her eyes, but she brightened visibly when her mother and Tom, followed by the Stevens, pushed through the crowd. She listened eagerly to their praises and to Tom’s whole-hearted exclamations over her beauty and charm.

Then the lights of the stage dimmed. She had had her hour as an actress; she knew she had acquitted herself well. The smell of grease, paint and powder faded and she was a newspaperwoman again – the editor of the Herald.

CHAPTER XI

New Plans

With the end of the school year Tom and Helen were able to give their complete time and energies to the Herald. When Monday, the first of June arrived, they were working on their fourth issue of the Herald and Helen had written a number of stories on the last week’s activities at school, the graduation exercises, the junior-senior dinner and the senior class play. She praised Miss Weeks highly for her work with the class play and lauded the seniors for their fine acting. Although urged that she say something about her own part, Helen steadfastly refused and her brother finally gave up in disgust and delved in to the ledger for on his shoulders fell the task of making out the monthly bills and handling all of the business details of the paper.

When Tom had completed his bookkeeping he turned to his sister.

“Helen,” he began, “we’re not making enough.”

“But, Tom,” she protested, “the paper is carrying more advertising than when Dad ran it.”

“Yes, but our expenses are high,” said Tom. “We’ve got to look ahead all the time. Dad will have used all of the money he took with him in a little less than six months. After that it will be up to us to have the cash in the bank. Right now we’ve just a little under a hundred dollars in the bank. Current bills will take more than that, and our own living expenses, that is for mother and we two, will run at least $100 a month. With our total income from the paper only slightly more than $200 a month on the basis of the present amount of advertising, you see we’re not going to be able to save much toward helping Dad.”

“Then we’ll have to find ways of increasing our volume of business,” said Helen.

“That won’t be easy to do in a town this size,” replied Tom, “and I won’t go out and beg for advertising.”

“No one is going to ask you to,” said Helen. “We’ll make the Herald such a bright, outstanding paper that all of the business men will want to advertise.”

“We’ll do the best we can,” agreed Tom.

“Then let’s start right now by putting in a farm page,” suggested Helen.

“But there won’t be many farm sales from now on,” argued Tom.

“No,” conceded his sister, “but there is haying, threshing and then corn picking and all of the stores have supplies to sell to the farmers.”

“I believe you’re right. If you’ll do the collecting this afternoon, I’ll go down to Gladbrook and see if we can get the cooperation of the county agent. Lots of the townships near here have farm bureaus and I’ll get the names of all of their leaders and we’ll write and tell them what we plan to do.”

After lunch Tom teased the family flivver into motion and set out for Gladbrook while Helen took the sheaf of bills and started the rounds of the business houses. She had no trouble getting her money from all of the regular advertisers and in every store in which she stopped she took care to ask the owner about news of the store and of his family. She noticed that it flattered each one and she resolved to call on them at least once a week.

Tom returned from Gladbrook late in the afternoon. He was enthusiastic over the success of his talk with the county agent.

“He’s a fine chap,” Tom explained. “Had a course in agricultural journalism in college and knows news and how to write it. The Gladbrook papers, the News and the Times, don’t come up in this section of the county and he’ll be only too glad to send us a column each week.”

“When will he start?”

“Next week will be the first one. He’ll mail his column every Tuesday evening and we’ll have it on the Wednesday morning mail. Now, here’s even better news. I went to several of the department stores at Gladbrook and told them we were going to put out a real farm page. They’re actually anxious to buy space and by driving down there once a week I can get two or three good ads.”

“How will the local merchants feel?” asked Helen.

“They won’t object,” replied Tom, “for I was careful to stress that I would only accept copy which would not conflict with that used by our local stores.”

“That was a wise thing to do,” Helen said. “We can’t afford to antagonize our local advertisers. I made the rounds and collected all of the regular accounts. There’s only about eighteen dollars outstanding on this month’s bills and I’ll get all but about five dollars of that before the week is over.”

“Want to go to Cranston Friday or Saturday?” asked Tom.

“I surely do,” Helen replied. “But what for, Tom, and can we afford it?”

“One of us will have to make the trip,” her brother said. “Putting on this farm page means we’ll have to print two more pages at home, six altogether, and will need only two pages of ready-print a week from the World Printing Company. We’ll go down and talk with their manager at Cranston and select the features we want for the two pages they will continue to print for us.”

“Our most important features in the ready-print now are the comics, the serial story and the fashion news for women,” said Helen.

“Then we’ll have one page of comics,” said Tom, “and fill the other page with features of special interest to our women readers.”

The next three days found the young Blairs so busy getting out the current edition of the paper that they had little time to talk about their plans.

They had decided to go to Cranston Friday but when Helen found that there were special rates for Saturday, they postponed the trip one day. When the Friday morning mail arrived, Helen was glad they had changed their plans. While sorting the handful of letters, most of them circulars destined for the wastepaper basket, she came upon the letter she had been looking forward to for days. The words in the upper left hand corner thrilled her. It was from the Cranston bureau of the Associated Press.

With fingers that trembled slightly, she tore it open. Would she get the job as Rolfe correspondent? A green slip dropped out of the envelope and Tom, who had come in from the composing room, reached down and picked it up.

“Ten dollars!” he whistled.

“What’s that?” demanded Helen, incredulously.

“It’s your check from the Associated Press for covering the tornado,” explained Tom. “Look!”

Helen took the slip of crisp, green paper. She wasn’t dreaming. It was a check, made out in her name and for $10.

“But there must be some mistake,” she protested. “They didn’t mean to pay me that much.”

“If you think there’s a mistake,” grinned Tom, “you can go and see them when we reach Cranston tomorrow. However, if I were you, I’d tuck it in my pocket, invite my brother across the street to the drug store, and buy him a big ice cream soda.”

“Wait until I see what the letter says,” replied Helen. She pulled it out of the envelope and Tom leaned over to read it with her.

“Dear Miss Blair,” it started, “enclosed you will find check for your fine work in reporting the tornado near Rolfe. Please consider this letter as your appointment as Rolfe correspondent for the Associated Press. Serious accidents, fires of more than $5,000 damage and deaths of prominent people should be sent as soon as possible. Telegraph or telephone, sending all your messages collect. In using the telegraph, send messages by press rate collect when the story is filed in the daytime. If at night, send them night press collect. And remember, speed counts but accuracy must come first. Stories of a feature or time nature should be mailed. We are counting on you to protect us on all news that breaks in and near Rolfe. Very truly yours, Alva McClintock, Correspondent in charge of the Cranston Bureau.”

“He certainly said a lot in a few words,” was Tom’s comment. “Now you’re one up on me. You’re editor of the Herald and Associated Press correspondent and I’m only business manager.”

“Don’t get discouraged,” laughed Helen, “I’ll let you write some of the Associated Press stories.”

“Thanks of the compliment,” grinned Tom. “I’m still waiting for that ice cream soda, Miss Plutocrat.”

“You’ll grumble until I buy it, I suppose, so I might as well give in right now,” said Helen. “Come on. I’m hungry for one myself.”

Tom and Helen boarded the nine forty-five Saturday morning and arrived at the state capital shortly after noon. It was Helen’s first trip to Cranston and she enjoyed every minute of it, the noise and confusion of the great railroad terminal, the endless bobbing about of the red caps, the cries of news boys heralding noonday editions and the ceaseless roar of the city.

They went into the large restaurant at the station for lunch and after that Tom inquired at the information desk for directions on how to reach the plant of the World Printing Company. He copied the information on a slip of paper and the two young newspaper people boarded a street car.

Half an hour later they were on the outskirts of the industrial district and even before the conductor called their stop, Tom heard the steady roar of great presses.

“Here we are,” he told Helen as they stepped down from the car and looked up at a hulking ten story building that towered above them.

“The Cranston plant of the Rolfe Herald,” chuckled Helen. “Lead on.”

They walked up the steps into the office, gave their names and indicated their business to the office girl. After waiting a few minutes they were ushered into an adjoining office where an energetic, middle aged man who introduced himself as Henry Walker, service manager, greeted them.

“Let’s see, you’re from the Rolfe Herald?” he asked.

“My sister and I are running the paper while Dad is in the southwest regaining his health,” explained Tom. “We’ve got to expand the paper to increase our advertising space and the only thing we can see to do is cut down our ready-print to two pages.”

“Explain just what you mean,” suggested the service manager.

Tom outlined their advertising field and how they hoped to increase business by adding two more pages of home print, one of which would be devoted to farm advertising and news and the other to be available for whatever additional advertising they could produce.

“We’ll be sorry to have you drop two pages of ready-print,” said Mr. Walker, “but I believe you’re doing the right thing. Now let’s see what you want on the two pages you’ll retain.”

“Helen is editor,” Tom explained, “and it’s up to her to pick out what she wants.”

“You’re doing a splendid job on the Herald,” the service manager told Helen. “I get copies of every paper we serve and I’ve been noticing the changes in make-up and the lively stories. However, I am sorry to hear about your father but with you two youngsters to give him pep and courage he ought to be back on the job in a few months.”

“We’re sure he will,” smiled Helen as she unfolded a copy of their last edition of the Herald. “I’ve pasted up two pages of the features I want to retain,” she explained as she placed them in front of the service manager.

“I see,” he said. “You’re going to be quite metropolitan with a full page of comics and a page devoted to women. I’m glad of that. Too many editors of weeklies fail to realize that the women and not the men are the real readers of their papers. If you run a paper which appeals to women and children you’ll have a winner. Comics for the youngsters and a serial story with a strong love element and fashions and style news for the women.”

“How about cost?” asked Tom.

“Dropping the two pages won’t quite cut your bill with us in half,” explained Mr. Walker, “for you’re retaining all of our most expensive features. However, this new plan of yours will reduce your weekly bill about 40 per cent.”

“That’s satisfactory,” agreed Tom, “and we’d like to have it effective at once. Helen has written the headings she wants for each page.”

“We’ll send the pages, made up in the new way, down at the usual time next week,” promised the service manager, “and when there is anything else we can do, don’t hesitate to let us know.”

When they were out of the building, they paused to decide what to do next.

“I liked Mr. Walker,” said Helen. “He didn’t attempt to keep us from making the change. It means less money for his company yet he didn’t object.”

“It was good business on his part,” replied Tom. “Now we feel kindly toward him and although he has lost temporarily he will gain in the end for we’ll give him every bit of business we can in the way of ordering supplies for job printing and extra stock for the paper.”

“If we have time,” suggested Helen, “I’d like to go down to the Associated Press office.”

“Good idea,” agreed Tom. “I’d like to see how they handle all of the news.”

They boarded the first down town street car and got off fifteen minutes later in the heart of Cranston’s loop district. Across the street was the building which housed the Cranston Chronicle, the largest daily newspaper in the state. They consulted the directory in the lobby of the building and took the elevator to the fifth floor where the Associated Press offices were located.

They stepped out of the elevator and into a large room, filled with the clatter of many machines. A boy, his face smeared with blue smudges off carbon paper, rushed up to them and inquired their business.