The Project Gutenberg eBook, Helen in the Editor's Chair, by Ruthe S. Wheeler

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HELEN
IN THE
EDITOR’S CHAIR

BY
RUTHE S. WHEELER

The Goldsmith Publishing Company
Chicago

CHAPTER CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE [I. The Weekly Herald.] 13 [II. Startling News.] 22 [III. In The Editor’s Chair.] 34 [IV. Through the Storm.] 50 [V. Reporting Plus.] 62 [VI. A New Week Dawns.] 75 [VII. The First Issue.] 93 [VIII. Mystery in the Night.] 111 [IX. Rescue on Lake Dubar.] 124 [X. Behind the Footlights.] 139 [XI. New Plans.] 160 [XII. Special Assignment.] 177 [XIII. Helen’s Exclusive Story.] 195 [XIV. The Queen’s Last Trip.] 209 [XV. Success Attends.] 225

Helen in the Editor’s Chair

CHAPTER I
The Weekly Herald

Thursday!

Press day!

Helen Blair anxiously watched the clock on the wall of the assembly room. Five more minutes and school would be dismissed for the day. How those minutes dragged. She moved her books impatiently.

Finally the dismissal bell sounded. Helen straightened the books in her desk and, with the 162 others in the large assembly of the Rolfe High School, rose and marched down to the cloak room. She was glad that school was over for, to her, Thursday was the big day of the week.

Press day!

What magic lay in those two words.

By supper time the Rolfe Herald would be in every home in town and, when families sat down to their evening meal, they would have the paper beside them.

Helen’s father, Hugh Blair, was the editor and publisher of the Herald. Her brother, Tom, a junior in high school, wrote part of the news and operated the Linotype, while Helen helped in the office every night after school and on Saturdays.

On Thursday her work comprised folding the papers as they came off the clanking press. Her arms ached long before her task was done, but she prided herself on the neatness of the stacks of papers that grew as she worked.

“Aren’t you going to stay for the final sophomore debate tryouts?” asked Margaret Stevens. Margaret, daughter of the only doctor in Rolfe, lived across the street from the Blairs.

“Not this afternoon,” smiled Helen, “this is press day.”

“I’d forgotten,” laughed Margaret. “All right, hurry along and get your hands covered with ink.”

“Come over after supper and tell me about the tryouts,” said Helen.

“I will,” promised Margaret as she turned to the classroom where the tryouts were to be held.

The air was warm and Helen, with her spring coat over her arm, hurried from the high school building and started down the long hill that led to the main street.

Rolfe was a pretty midwestern village tucked away among the hills bordering Lake Dubar, a long, narrow body of water that attracted summer visitors from hundreds of miles away.

The main street, built along a valley that opened out on the lake shore, was a broad, graveled street, flanked by a miscellaneous collection of stores and shops. Some of them were of weather-beaten red brick, others were of frame and a few of them, harking back to pioneer days, had false fronts. In the afternoon sun, it presented a quiet, friendly scene.

Helen reached the foot of the school house hill and turned on to the main street. On the right of the street and just two blocks from the lake shore stood the one-story frame structure housing the postoffice and her father’s printing plant. The postoffice occupied the front half of the building and the Herald office was the rear.

Helen walked down the alleyway between the postoffice and the Temple furniture store. She heard the noise of the press before she reached the office and knew that her father had started the afternoon run.

The Herald, an eight page paper, used four pages of ready print and four pages of home print. Each week’s supply of paper was shipped from Cranston, where four pages filled with prepared news and pictures, were printed. The other four, carrying local advertisements and news of Rolfe and vicinity were printed on the aged press in the Herald office.

Helen hurried up the three steps leading to the editorial office. Its one unwashed window shut out the sunlight, and the office lay in a semi-shadow. Unable to see clearly after the brightness of the sunlight, she did not see her father at his desk when she entered the office.

“Hello, Dad,” she called as she took off her tam and sailed it along the counter where it finally came to rest against a stack of freshly printed Heralds.

Her father did not answer and Helen was on the point of going on into the composing room when she turned toward him. His head still rested on his arms and he gave no sign of having heard her.

Concerned over his silence, she hurried to his desk.

“Dad, Dad!” she cried. “What’s the matter! Answer me!”

Her father’s head moved and he looked up at her. His face was pale and there were dark hollows under his eyes.

“I’m all right, Helen,” he said, but the usual smile was missing. “Just felt a little faint and came in here to take a few minutes rest. I’ll be all right shortly. You go on and help Tom. I’ll be with you in a while.”

“But if you don’t feel well, Dad, you’d better go home and rest,” insisted Helen. “You know Tom and I can finish getting out the paper. Now you run along and don’t worry about things at the office.”

She reached for his hat and coat hanging on a hook at one side of the desk. He remonstrated at the prospect of going home with the work only half done, but Helen was adamant and her father finally gave in.

“Perhaps it will be best,” he agreed as he walked slowly toward the door.

Helen watched him descend the steps; then saw him reach the street and turn toward home.

She was startled by the expression she had just seen on her father’s face. He had never been particularly robust and now he looked as though something had come upon him which was crushing his mind and body. Illness, worry and apprehension had carved lines in his face that afternoon.

Helen went into the composing room where the Linotype, the rows of type cases, the makeup tables, the job press and the newspaper press were located. At the back end of the room was the large press, moving steadily back and forth as Tom, perched on a high stool, fed sheets of paper into one end. From the other came the freshly printed papers of that week’s edition of the Herald.

“Shut off the press,” called Helen, shouting to make herself heard above the noise of the working machinery.

“What say?” cried Tom.

“Shut it off,” his sister replied.

Tom scowled as he reached for the clutch to stop the press. He liked nothing better than running the press and when he had it well under way, usually printed the whole edition without a stop unless the paper became clogged or he had to readjust the ink rollers.

“What’s the idea?” he demanded. “I’m trying to get through so I can play some baseball before dark.”

“Dad’s sick,” explained Helen, “and I made him go home. Do you know what’s the matter?”

“Gosh, no,” said Tom as he climbed down from his stool. “He wasn’t feeling very well when I came down from school and said he was going in the office to rest, but I didn’t know he felt that badly.”

“Well, he did,” replied Helen, “and I’m worried about him.”

“We always take him more or less for granted. He goes on year after year working in the office, getting enough together to make us all comfortable and hoping that he can send us to college some day. We help him when we can, but he plugs away day after day and I’ve noticed lately that he hasn’t been very perky. Mother has been worried, too. I can tell from the way she acts when Dad comes home at night. She’s always asking him how he feels and urging him to get to bed early. I tell you, Tom, something’s wrong with Dad and we’ve got to find out and help him.”

“Let’s go get Doctor Stevens right now,” said the impetuous Tom, and he reached to shut off the motor of the press.

“Not now,” said Helen. “If Dad thought we weren’t getting the paper out on time he’d worry all the more. We’ll finish the paper and then have Doctor Stevens come over this evening. We can fix it so he’ll just drop in for a social call.”

“Good idea,” said Tom as he climbed back on his stool and threw in the clutch.

The press started its steady clanking and Helen picked up a pile of papers and spread them out on one of the makeup stones. Her father had printed two of the pages of home news during the morning and these sheets were stacked in a pile in one corner. She arranged two piles of papers on the makeup table, one pile which her father had printed and one of papers which were coming off the press as fast as Tom could keep it rolling.

Helen put on a heavy, blue-denim apron to protect her school dress and went to work. With nimble hands she put the sheets of paper together, folded them with a quick motion and slid the completed paper off the table and onto a box placed close by for that purpose.

The press, of unknown vintage, moved slowly and when Helen started at the same time as Tom she could fold the papers as rapidly as they were printed. But that day Tom, who had managed to be excused half an hour early, had too much of a start and when he finished the press run Helen still had several hundred papers to fold.

Tom stopped the press, shut off the motor, raised the ink rollers and then pulled the forms off the press and carried them to the other makeup table. After washing the ink off the type with a gasoline-soaked rag, he gathered an armful of papers Helen had folded and carried them into the editorial office. There he got out the long galleys which held the names of the subscribers. He inked each galley, placed it in the mailing machine, and then fed the papers into the mailer. They came out with the name of a subscriber printed at the top of each paper.

The young Blairs worked silently, hastening to complete their respective tasks so they could hurry home. Tom had forgotten his plans to play baseball and all thought of the outcome of the debate tryouts had left Helen’s mind. There was one thought uppermost in their minds. What was the matter with their father?

CHAPTER II
Startling News

The last paper folded, Helen removed the heavy apron and washed her hands at the sink behind the press. When she entered the editorial office Tom was putting the last of the papers through the mailer. They gathered them up, placed them in a large sack and carried them into the postoffice.

“We won’t stop to sweep out tonight,” said Helen. “Let’s lock up and then see Doctor Stevens on our way home. He’s usually in his office at this time.”

Tom agreed and, after putting away the mailing machine, locked the back door, closed the windows in the shop and announced that he was ready to go.

Helen locked the front door and they walked down main street toward the white, one-story building which housed the office of Doctor Stevens, the town’s only physician.

Tom was tall and slender with wavy, brown hair and brown eyes that were always alive with interest. Helen came scarcely above his shoulder, but she was five feet two of concentrated energy. She had left her tam at the office and the afternoon sun touched her blond hair with gold. Her eyes were the same clear blue as her mother’s and the rosy hue in her cheeks gave hint of her vitality.

They entered Doctor Stevens’ waiting room and found the genial physician reading a medical journal.

“Hello, Helen! How are you Tom?” He boomed in his deep voice.

“We’re fine, Doctor Stevens,” replied Helen, “but we’re worried about Dad.”

“Why, what’s the matter with your father?” asked the doctor, adjusting his glasses.

“Dad wasn’t feeling very well when I came down from school at three-thirty,” said Tom, “and when I started the afternoon press run, he went into the office to rest a while. When Helen came in a little after four, Dad looked pretty rocky and she made him go home.”

“How did he look when you talked with him?” Doctor Stevens asked Helen.

“Awfully tired and mighty worried,” replied Helen. “It was his eyes more than anything else. He’s afraid of something and it has worried him until he is positively ill.”

“And haven’t you any idea what it could be?” asked the doctor.

“I’ve been thinking about it ever since Dad went home,” said Helen, “and I don’t know of a single thing that would worry him that much.”

“Neither do I,” added Tom.

“What we’d like to have you do,” went on Helen, “is to drop in after supper. Make it look like a little social visit and it will give you a good excuse to give Dad the once over. We’ll be ever so much relieved if you will.”

“Of course I will,” the doctor assured them. “You’re probably worrying about some little thing and the more you think about it, the larger it grows. Possibly a little touch of stomach trouble. What have you been trying to cook, lately?” he asked Helen.

“Couldn’t be my cooking,” she replied. “I haven’t done any for a week and you know that Mother’s good cooking would never make anyone ill.”

“I’ll come over about seven-thirty,” promised Doctor Stevens, “and don’t you two worry yourselves over this. Your father will be all right in a day or two.”

Helen and Tom thanked Doctor Stevens and continued on their way home. They went back past the postoffice and the Herald and down toward the lake, whose waters reflected the rays of the setting sun in varied hues.

A block from the lake shore they turned to their right into a tree-shaded street and climbed a gentle hill. Their home stood on a knoll overlooking the lake. It was an old-fashioned house that had started out as a three room cottage. Additions had been made until it rambled away in several directions. It boasted no definite style of architecture, but had a hominess that few houses possess. From the long, open front porch, there was an unobstructed view down the lake, which stretched away in the distance, its far reaches hidden in the coming twilight. A speed boat, being loaded with the afternoon mail for the summer resorts down the lake, was sputtering at the big pier at the foot of main street. A bundle of Heralds was placed on the boat and then it whisked away down the lake, a curving streak of white marking its passage.

Helen found her mother in the kitchen preparing their evening meal.

Mrs. Blair, at forty-five, was a handsome woman. Her hair had decided touches of gray but her face still held the peachbloom of youth and she looked more like an older sister than a mother. She had been a teacher in the high school at Rolfe when Hugh Blair had come to edit the country paper. The teacher and the editor had fallen in love and she had given up teaching and married him.

“How’s Dad?” Helen asked.

“He doesn’t feel very well,” her mother replied and Helen could see lines of worry around her mother’s eyes.

“Don’t worry, Mother,” she counselled. “Dad has been working too hard this year. In two more weeks school will be over and Tom and I can do most of the work on the paper. You two can plan on a fine trip and a real rest this summer.”

“I hope so,” said Mrs. Blair, “for your father certainly needs a change of some kind.”

Helen helped her mother with the preparations for supper, setting the table and carrying the food from the kitchen to the dining room where broad windows opened out on the porch.

Tom, who had been upstairs washing the last of the ink from his hands, entered the kitchen.

“Supper about ready?” he asked. “I’m mighty hungry tonight.”

“All ready,” smiled his mother. “I’ll call your father.”

Helen turned on the lights in the dining room and they waited for their father to come from his bedroom. They could hear low voices for several minutes and finally Mrs. Blair returned to the dining room.

“We’ll go ahead and eat,” she managed to smile. “Your father doesn’t feel like supper right now.”

Tom started to say something, but Helen shook her head and they sat down and started their evening meal.

Mrs. Blair, usually gay and interested in the activities of the day, had little to say, but Helen talked of school and the activities and plans of the sophomore class.

“We’re going to have a picnic down the lake next Monday,” she said.

“That’s nothing,” said Tom, who was president of the junior class. “We’re giving the seniors the finest banquet they’ve ever had.”

Whereupon they fell into a heated argument over the merits of the sophomores and juniors, a question which had been debated all year without a definite decision. Sometimes Tom considered himself the victor while on other occasions Helen had the best of the argument.

Supper over, Helen helped her mother clear the table and wash the dishes. It was seven-thirty before they had finished their work in the kitchen and Mrs. Blair was on her way to her husband’s room when Doctor Stevens, bag in hand, walked in.

A neighbor for many years, the genial doctor did not stop to knock.

“Haven’t been in for weeks,” he said, “so thought I’d drop over and chin with Hugh for a while.”

“Hugh isn’t feeling very well,” said Mrs. Blair. “He came home from the office this afternoon and didn’t want anything for supper.”

“Let me have a look at him,” said Doctor Stevens. “Suppose his stomach is out of whack or something like that.”

Tom and Helen, standing in the dining room, watched Doctor Stevens and their mother go down the hall to their father’s bedroom.

The next half hour was one of the longest in their young lives. Tom tried to read the continued story in the Herald, while Helen fussed at first one thing and then another.

The door of their father’s room finally opened and Doctor Stevens summoned them.

Neither Tom nor Helen would ever forget the scene in their father’s bedroom that night. Their mother, seated at the far side of the bed, looked at them through tear-dimmed eyes.

Their father, reclining on the bed, looked taller than ever, and the lines of pain which Helen had noticed in his face that afternoon had deepened. His hands were moving nervously and his eyes were bright with fever.

“Sit down,” said Doctor Stevens as he took a chair beside Hugh Blair’s bed.

Tom was about to ask his father how he felt, when Doctor Stevens spoke again.

“We might as well face this thing together,” he said. “I’ll tell you now that it is going to be something of a fight for all of you, but unless I’m mistaken, the Blairs are all real fighters.”

“What’s the matter Doctor Stevens?” Helen’s voice was low and strained.

“Your father must take a thorough rest,” he said. “He will have to go to some southwestern state for a number of months. Perhaps it will only take six months, but it may be longer.”

“But I can’t be away that long,” protested Hugh Blair. “I must think of my family, of the Herald.”

“Your family must think of you now,” said Doctor Stevens firmly. “That’s why I wanted to talk this over with Tom and Helen.”

“Just what is wrong, Dad?” asked Tom.

Doctor Stevens answered the question.

“Lung trouble,” he said quietly. “Your father has spent too many years bent over his desk in that dark cubbyhole of his—too many years without a vacation. Now he’s got to give that up and devote a number of months to building up his body again.”

Helen felt the blood racing through her body. Her throat went dry and her head ached. She had realized only that afternoon that her father wasn’t well but she had not been prepared for Doctor Stevens’ announcement.

The doctor was talking again.

“I blame myself partly,” he was telling Hugh Blair. “You worked yourself into this almost under my eyes, and I never dreamed what was happening. Too close to you, I guess.”

“When do you think Hugh should start for the southwest?” asked Helen’s mother.

“Just as soon as we can arrange things,” replied Doctor Stevens. “This is Thursday. I’d like to have him on the way by Saturday night. Every day counts.”

“That’s impossible,” protested Hugh Blair, half rising from his bed. “I don’t see how I can possibly afford it. Think of the expense of a trip down there, of living there. What about the Herald? What about my family?”

A plan had been forming in Helen’s mind from the time Doctor Stevens had said her father must go to a different climate.

“Everything will be all right, Dad,” she said. “There isn’t a reason in the world why you shouldn’t go. Tom and I are capable of running the Herald and with what you’ve saved toward our college educations, you can make the trip and stay as long as you want to.”

“But I couldn’t think of using your college money,” protested her father, “even if you and Tom could run the Herald.”

“Helen’s got the right idea,” said Doctor Stevens. “Your health must come above everything else right now. I’m sure those youngsters can run the Herald. Maybe they’ll do an even better job than you,” he added with a twinkle in his eyes.

“We can run the paper in fine shape, Dad,” said Tom. “If you hired someone from outside to come in and take charge it would eat up all the profits. If Helen and I run the Herald, we’ll have every cent we make for you and mother.”

Mrs. Blair, who had been silent during the discussion, spoke.

“Hugh,” she said, “Tom and Helen are right. I know how you dislike using their college money, but it is right that you should. I am sure that they can manage the Herald.”

Thus it was arranged that Tom and Helen were to take charge of the Herald. They talked with the superintendent of schools the next day and he agreed to excuse them from half their classes for the remaining weeks of school with the provision that they must pass all of their final examinations.

Friday and Saturday passed all too quickly. Helen busied herself collecting the current accounts and Tom spent part of the time at the office doing job work and the remainder at home helping with the packing.

Saturday noon Tom went to the bank and withdrew the $1,275 their father had placed in their college account. The only money left was $112 in the Herald account, just enough to take care of running expenses of the paper.

Hugh Blair owned his home and his paper, was proud of his family and his host of friends, but of actual worldly wealth he had little.

Doctor Stevens drove them to the Junction thirty miles away where Hugh Blair was to take the Southwestern limited. There was little conversation during the drive.

The limited was at the junction when they arrived and goodbyes were brief.

Hugh Blair said a few words to his wife, who managed to smile through her tears. Then he turned to Tom and Helen.

“Take good care of the Herald,” he told them, as he gave them a goodbye hug.

“We will Dad and you take good care of yourself,” they called as he climbed into the Pullman.

Cries of “boooo-ard,” sounded along the train. The porters swung their footstools up into the vestibules, the whistle sounded two short, sharp blasts, and the limited rolled away from the station.

Tom, Helen and their mother stood on the platform until the train disappeared behind a hill.

When they turned toward home, Tom and Helen faced the biggest responsibility of their young lives. It was up to them to continue the publication of the Herald, to supply the money to keep their home going and to build up a reserve which their father could call upon if he was forced to use all the money from their college fund.

CHAPTER III
In the Editor’s Chair

Sunday morning found Tom and Helen Blair entering a new era in their lives. While their father sped toward the southwest in quest of renewed health, they planned how they could develop the Herald.

Their mother was silent through breakfast and several times they saw her eyes dim with tears.

“Don’t worry, Mother,” said Helen. “We’ll manage all right and Dad is going to pull through in fine shape. Why, he’ll be back with us by Christmas time.”

“I wish I could be as optimistic as you are, Helen,” said Mrs. Blair.

“You’ll feel better in a few more hours,” said Tom. “It’s the suddenness of it all. Now we’ve got to buckle down and make the Herald keep on paying dividends.”

Tom and Helen helped their mother clear away the breakfast dishes and then dressed for Sunday school. Mrs. Blair taught a class of ten-to-twelve-year-old girls. Tom and Helen were in the upper classes.

The Methodist church they attended was a red brick structure, the first brick building built in Rolfe, and it was covered with English ivy that threatened even to hide the windows. The morning was warm and restful and they enjoyed the walk from home to church.

The minister was out of town on his vacation and there were no church services. After Sunday school the Blairs walked down to the postoffice. The large mail box which was rented for the Herald was filled with papers, circulars and letters.

“We might as well go back to the office and sort this out,” said Tom, and Mrs. Blair and Helen agreed.

The office was just as Tom and Helen had left it Thursday night for they had been too busy since then helping with the arrangements for their father’s departure to clean it up.

The type was still in the forms, papers were scattered on the floor and dust had gathered on the counter and the desk which had served Hugh Blair for so many years.

“I’ll open the windows and the back door,” said Tom, “and we’ll get some air moving through here. It’s pretty stuffy.”

Mrs. Blair sat down in the swivel chair in front of her husband’s desk and Helen pulled up the only other chair in the office, an uncomfortable straight-backed affair.

“You’re editor now,” Mrs. Blair told Helen. “You’d better start in by sorting the mail.”

“Tom’s in charge,” replied Helen as her brother returned to the office.

“Let’s not argue,” said Tom. “We’ll have a business meeting right now. Mother, you represent Dad, who is the owner. Now you decide who will be what.”

“What will we need?” smiled Mrs. Blair.

“We need a business manager first,” said Helen.

“Wrong,” interjected Tom. “It’s a publisher.”

“Then I say let’s make it unanimous and elect mother as publisher,” said Helen.

“Second the motion,” grinned Tom.

“If there are no objections, the motion is declared passed,” said Helen. “And now Mother, you’re the duly elected publisher of the Rolfe Herald.”

“I may turn out to be a hard-boiled boss,” said Mrs. Blair, but her smile belied her words.

“We’re not worrying a whole lot,” said Tom. “The next business is selecting a business manager, a mechanical department, an editor, and a reporter. Also a couple of general handymen capable of doing any kind of work on a weekly newspaper.”

“That sounds like a big payroll for a paper as small as the Herald,” protested Mrs. Blair.

“I think you’ll be able to get them reasonable,” said Tom.

“In which case,” added Helen, “you’d better appoint Tom as business manager, mechanical department, and handyman.”

“And you might as well name Helen as editor, reporter and first assistant to the handyman,” grinned Tom.

“I’ve filled my positions easier than I expected,” smiled Mrs. Blair. “As publisher, I’ll stay at home and keep out of your way.”

“Mother, we don’t want you to do that,” exclaimed Helen. “We want you to come down and help us whenever you have time.”

“But what could I do?” asked her mother.

“Lots of things. For instance, jot down all of the personal items you know about your friends and about all of the club meetings. That would be a great help to me. Sometimes in the evening maybe you’d even find time to write them up, for Tom and I are going to be frightfully busy between going to school and running the Herald.”

“I’ll tell the town,” said Tom. “If you’d handle the society news, Mother, you could make it a great feature. The Herald has never paid much attention to the social events in town. Guess Dad was too busy. But I think the women would appreciate having all of their parties written up. I could set up a nice head, ‘Society News of Rolfe,’ and we’d run a column or so every week on one of the inside pages.”

“You’re getting me all excited, Tom,” said his mother. “Your father said I never would make a newspaper woman but if you and Helen will have a little patience with me, I’d really enjoy writing the social items.”

“Have patience with you, Mother?” said Helen. “It’s a case of whether you’ll have patience with us.”

“We’re going to have to plan our time carefully,” said Tom, “for we’ll have to keep up in our school work. I’ve got it doped out like this. Superintendent Fowler says Helen and I can go half days and as long as we cover all of the class work, receive full credit. The first half of the week is going to be the busiest for me. I’ll have to solicit my ads, set them up, do what job work I have time for and set up the stories Helen turns out for the paper. I could get in more time in the afternoon than in the morning so Helen had better plan on taking the mornings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday away from school.”

“It will work out better for her, too,” went on Tom. “Many of the big news events happen over the week-end and she’ll be on the job Monday morning. I’ll have every afternoon and evening for my share of the work and for studying. Then we’ll both take Thursday afternoon away from school and get the paper out. And on Friday, Mother, if you’ll come down and stay at the office, we’ll go to school all day. How does that sound?”

“Seems to me you’ve thought of everything,” agreed Helen. “I like the idea of doing my editorial work in the mornings the first part of the week and I’ll be able to do some of it after school hours.”

“Then it looks like the Herald staff is about ready to start work on the next issue,” said Tom. “We have a publisher, a business manager and an editor. What we need now are plenty of ads and lots of news.”

“What would you say, Mother, if Tom and I stayed down at the office a while and did some cleaning up?” asked Helen.

“Under the circumstances, I haven’t any objections,” said their mother. “There isn’t any church service this morning and you certainly can put in a few hours work here in the office to good advantage. I’ll stay and help you with the dusting and sweeping.”

“You run on home and rest,” insisted Helen. “Also, don’t forget Sunday dinner. We’ll be home about two or two-thirty, and we’ll be hungry by that time.”

Mrs. Blair picked up the Sunday papers and after warning Tom and Helen that dinner would be ready promptly at two-thirty, left them in the office.

“Well, Mr. Business Manager, what are you going to start on?” asked Helen.

“Mr. Editor,” replied Tom, “I’ve got to throw in all the type from last week’s forms. What are you going to do?”

“The office needs a good cleaning,” said Helen. “I’m going to put on my old apron and spend an hour dusting and mopping. You keep out or you’ll track dirt in while I’m doing it.”

Tom took off the coat of his Sunday suit, rolled up his shirt sleeves and donned the ink-smeared apron he wore when working in the composing room. Helen put on the long apron she used when folding papers and they went to work with their enthusiasm at a high pitch. Their task was not new but so much now depended on the success of their efforts that they found added zest in everything they did.

Helen went through the piles of old papers on her father’s desk, throwing many of them into the large cardboard carton which served as a wastebasket. When the desk was finally in order, she turned her attention to the counter. Samples of stationery needed to be placed in order and she completely rearranged the old-fashioned show case with its display of job printing which showed what the Herald plant was capable of doing.

With the desk and counter in shape, Helen picked up all of the papers on the floor, pulled the now heavily laden cardboard carton into the composing room, and then secured the mop and a pail of water. The barber shop, located below the postoffice, kept the building supplied with warm water, and Helen soon had a good pail of suds.

Tom stopped his work in the composing room and came in to watch the scrubbing.

“First time that floor has been scrubbed in years,” he said.

“I know it,” said Helen as she swished her mop into the corners. “Dad was running the paper and Mother was too busy bringing us up to come down here and do it for him.”

“He’ll never recognize the old place when he comes back,” said Tom.

“We’ll brighten it up a little,” agreed Helen, as Tom returned to his task of throwing in the type.

Helen had the editorial office thoroughly cleaned by one o’clock and sat down in her father’s swivel chair to rest. Tom called in from the back room.

“You’d better plan your editorial work for the week,” he said. “I want to run the Linotype every afternoon and you’ll have to have copy for me.”

“What do you want first?” said Helen.

“Better get the editorials ready today,” he replied. “They don’t have to be absolutely spot copy. Dad wrote the first column himself and then clipped a column or a column and a half from nearby papers.”

“I’ll get at it right away,” said Helen. “The exchanges for last week are on the desk. After I’ve gone through them I’ll write my own editorials.”

“Better have one about Dad going away,” said Tom and there was a queer catch in his voice.

Helen did not answer for her eyes filled with a strange mist and her throat suddenly felt dry and full.

Their father’s departure for the southwest had left a great void in their home life but Helen knew they would have to make the best of it. She was determined that their efforts on the Herald be successful.

Helen turned to the stack of exchanges which were on the desk and opened the editorial page of the first one. She was a rapid reader and she scanned paper after paper in quest of editorials which would interest readers of the Herald. When she found one she snipped it out with a handy pair of scissors and pasted it on a sheet of copy paper. Six or seven were needed for the Herald’s editorial page and it took her half an hour to get enough. With the clipped editorials pasted and new heads written on them, Helen turned to the typewriter to write the editorials for the column which her father was accustomed to fill with his own comments on current subjects.

Helen had stacked the copypaper in a neat pile on the desk and she took a sheet and rolled it into the typewriter. She had taken a commercial course the first semester and her mastery of the touch system of typing was to stand her in good stead for her work as editor of the Herald.

For several minutes the young editor of the Herald sat motionless in front of her typewriter, struggling to find the right words. She knew her father would want only a few simple sentences about his enforced absence from his duties as publisher of the paper.

Then Helen got the idea she wanted and her fingers moved rapidly over the keys. The leading editorial was finished in a short time. It was only one paragraph and Helen took it out of the machine and read it carefully.

“Mr. Hugh Blair, editor and publisher of the Herald for the last twenty years, has been compelled, by ill health, to leave his work at Rolfe and go to a drier climate for at least six months. In the meantime, we ask your cooperation and help in our efforts to carry out Mr. Blair’s ideals in the publication of the Herald. Signed,

Mrs. Hugh Blair, Helen and Tom Blair.”

After reading the editorial carefully, Helen called to her brother.

“Come in and see what you think of my lead editorial,” she said.

Tom, his hands grimy with ink from the type he had been throwing into the cases, came into the editorial office.

He whistled in amazement at the change Helen had brought about. The papers were gone from the floor, which had been scrubbed clean, and the desk and counter were neat and orderly.

“Looks like a different office,” he said. “But wait until I have a chance to swing a broom and mop in the composing room. And I’m going to fix some of the makeup tables so they’ll be a little handier.”

Helen handed him the editorial and Tom read it thoughtfully.

“It’s mighty short,” he said, “but it tells the story.”

“Dad wouldn’t want a long sob story,” replied Helen. “Here’s the clipped editorials. You can put them on the hook on your Linotype and I’ll bring the others out as soon as I write them.”

Tom returned to the composing room with the handful of editorial copy Helen had given him and the editor of the Herald resumed her duties.

She wrote an editorial on the beauty of Rolfe in the spring and another one on the desirability for a paved road between Rolfe and Gladbrook, the county seat. In advocating the paved road, Helen pointed to the increased tourist traffic which would be drawn to Rolfe as soon as a paved road made Lake Dubar accessible to main highways.

It was nearly two o’clock when she finished her labor at the typewriter. She was tired and hungry. One thing sure, being editor of the Herald would be no easy task. Of that she was convinced.

“Let’s go home for dinner,” she called to Tom.

“Suits me,” replied her brother. “I’ve finished throwing in the last page. We’re all ready to start work on the next issue.”

They took off their aprons and while Helen washed her hands, Tom closed the windows and locked the back door. He took his turn at the sink and they locked the front door and started for home.

“What we need now is a good, big story for our first edition,” said Tom.

“We may have it before nightfall if those clouds get to rolling much more,” said Helen.

Tom scanned the sky. The sunshine of the May morning had vanished. Ominous banks of clouds were rolling over the hills which flanked the western valley of Lake Dubar and the lake itself was lashed by white caps, spurred by a gusty wind.

They went down main street, turned off on the side street and climbed the slope to their home.

Mrs. Blair was busy putting some heavy pots over flowers she wanted to protect from the wind.

“Dinner’s all ready,” she told them, “and I’ve asked Margaret Stevens over. She wants to talk with Helen about the sophomore class picnic tomorrow.”

“I won’t have time to go,” said Helen. “We’ll be awfully busy working on the next issue.”

“You’re on the class committee, aren’t you?” asked Tom.

“Yes.”

“Then you’re going to the picnic. We’ll have lots to do on the Herald but we won’t have to give up all of our other activities.”

“Tom is right,” said Mrs. Blair. “You must plan on going to the picnic.”

Margaret Stevens came across the street from her home. Margaret was a decided brunette, a striking contrast to Helen’s blondness.

“We’ll go in and eat,” said Mrs. Blair. “Then we’ll come out and watch the storm. There is going to be a lot of wind.”

Margaret was jolly and good company and Helen thought her mother wise to have a guest for dinner. It kept them from thinking too much about their father’s absence.

There was roast beef and hashed brown potatoes with thick gravy, lettuce salad, pickled beets, bread and butter, large glasses of rich milk and lemon pie.

“I’ve never tasted a better meal,” said Tom between mouthfuls.

“That’s because you’ve been so busy at the office,” smiled his mother.

“We were moving right along,” agreed Tom. “I got the forms all ready for the next issue and Helen has the editorials done.”

“Won’t you need a reporter?” asked Margaret.

“We may need one but Helen and Mother are going to try and do all the news writing,” said Tom.

“I mean a reporter who would work for nothing. I’d like to help for I’ve always wanted to write.”

“You could be a real help, Margaret,” said Helen, “and we’d enjoy having you help us. Keep your ears open for all of the personal items and tell Mother about any parties. She’s going to write the society news.”

“We’re getting quite a staff,” smiled Tom. “I’m open for applications of anyone who wants to work in the mechanical department.”

“That’s not as romantic as gathering and writing news,” said Margaret.

“But just as important,” insisted Tom.

The room darkened and a particularly heavy gust of wind shook the house. From the west came a low rumbling.

Tom dropped his knife and fork and went to the front porch.

“Come here, Helen!” he cried. “The storm’s breaking. You’re going to have your first big story right now!”

CHAPTER IV
Through the Storm

Tom’s cry brought the others from the dinner table to the screened-in porch which overlooked the lake. He was right. The storm was roaring down out of the hills in the west in all its fury.

The black clouds which had been rolling along the horizon when Tom and Helen had come home were massed in a solid, angry front. Driven by a whistling wind, they were sweeping down on the lake. An ominous fringe of yellow wind clouds dashed on ahead and as they reached the porch they saw the waters of Lake Dubar whiten before the fury of the wind.

“Looks like a twister,” shouted Tom.

His mother’s face whitened and she anxiously scanned the sky.

Doctor Stevens ran across from his home.

“Better close all your windows and secure the doors,” he warned. “We’re going to get a lot of wind before the rain comes.”

“Tom is afraid of a tornado,” said Mrs. Blair.

“The weather is about right,” admitted the doctor. “But we won’t worry until we see the clouds start to swirl. Then we’ll run for the storm cellar under my house.”

Helen and Margaret hurried to help Mrs. Blair close the upstairs windows while Tom went around to make sure that the screens were secure. He bolted all doors except the one to the porch and when he returned to join the others, the tempo of the wind was increasing rapidly.

The wind suddenly dropped to a whisper and Doctor Stevens watched the rolling clouds with renewed anxiety. The waters of the lake were calmer and the dust clouds which the wind had driven over the water cleared partially.

“Look!” cried Helen. “There’s a motorboat trying to reach one of the boathouses here!”

Through the haze of dust which still hung over the lake they could discern the outline of a boat, laboring to reach the safety of the Rolfe end of the lake.

“It’s Jim Preston,” said Doctor Stevens. “He goes down to the summer resorts at the far end of the lake every Sunday morning with the mail and papers.”

“His boat’s got a lot of water in it from the way it is riding,” added Tom. “If the storm hits him he’ll never make it.”

“Jim should have known better than to have taken a chance when he could see this mess of weather brewing,” snorted the doctor.

“His wife’s sick,” put in Mrs. Blair, “and Jim’s probably taken an extra risk to get home as soon as possible.”

“I know,” said Doctor Stevens.

“He’s bailing by hand,” cried Tom. “That means something has gone wrong with the water pump on the engine.”

“Can you see what boat he has?” asked Doctor Stevens.

“It looks like the Flyer,” said Helen, who knew the lines of every motorboat on the lake.

“That’s the poorest wet weather boat Jim has,” said Doctor Stevens. “Every white cap slops over the side. She’s fast but a death trap in a storm. Either the Liberty or the Argosy would eat up weather like this.”

“Jim’s been overhauling the engines in his other boats,” said Tom, “and the Flyer is the only thing he has been using this spring.”

“Instead of standing here talking, let’s get down to the shore,” said Helen. “Maybe we can get someone to go out and help him.”

Without waiting for the others to reply, Helen started running toward the lake. She heard a cry behind her and turned to see Tom pointing toward the hills in the west.

The wind was whistling again and when she turned to look in the direction her brother pointed, she stopped suddenly. The black storm clouds were massing for the main attack and they were rolling together.

In the seconds that Helen watched, she saw them swirl toward a common center, heard the deafening rise of the wind and trembled as the clouds, now formed in a great funnel, started toward the lake.

“Come back, Helen, come back!” Tom shouted.

Forcing herself to overcome the storm terror which now gripped her, Helen looked out over the boiling waters of the lake.

The wind was whipping into a new frenzy and she could just barely see the Flyer above the white-capped waves. Jim Preston was making a brave effort to reach shore and Helen knew that the little group at her own home were probably the only ones in Rolfe who knew of the boatman’s danger. Seconds counted and ignoring the warning cries from her brother, she hurried on toward the lake.

The noise of the oncoming tornado beat on her ears, but she dared not look toward the west. If she did she knew she would turn and race for the shelter and security of Doctor Stevens’ storm cellar.

The Flyer was rolling dangerously as Jim Preston made for the shore and Helen doubted if the boatman would ever make it.

On and on the sleek craft pushed its way, the waves breaking over its slender, speedy nose and cascading back into the open cockpit in which Jim Preston was bailing furiously. The Flyer was nosing deeper into the waves as it shipped more water. When the ignition wires got wet the motor would stop and Preston’s last chance would be gone.

Helen felt someone grab her arms. It was Tom.

“Come back!” he cried. “The tornado will be on us in another five minutes!”

“We’ve got to help Mr. Preston,” shouted Helen, and she refused to move.

“All right, then I stay too,” yelled Tom, who kept anxious eyes on the approaching tornado.

The Flyer was less than a hundred yards from shore but was settling deeper and deeper into the water.

“It’s almost shallow enough for him to wade ashore,” cried Helen.

“Wind would sweep him off his feet,” replied Tom.

The speedboat was making slow progress, barely staggering along in its battle against the wind and waves.

“He’s going to make it!” shouted Helen.

“I hope so,” said Tom, but his words were lost in the wind.

Fifty yards more and the Flyer would nose into the sandy beach which marked the Rolfe end of the lake.

“Come on, Flyer, come on!” cried Helen.

“The engine’s dying,” said Tom. “Look, the nose is going under that big wave.”

With the motor dead, the Flyer lost way and buried its nose under a giant white-cap.

“He’s jumping out of the boat,” added Helen. “It’s shallow enough so he can wade in if he can keep his feet.”

Ignoring the increasing danger of the tornado, they ran across the sandy beach.

“Join hands,” cried Helen. “We can wade out and pull him the last few feet.”

Realizing that his sister would go on alone if he did not help her, Tom locked his hands in hers and they plunged into the shallow water.

Jim Preston, on the verge of exhaustion, staggered through the waves.

The Flyer, caught between two large rollers, filled with water and disappeared less than ten seconds after it had been abandoned.

The boatman floundered toward them and Tom and Helen found themselves hard-pressed to keep their own feet, for a strong undertow threatened to upset them and sweep them out into the lake.

Preston lunged toward them and they caught him as he fell.

Tom turned momentarily to watch the approach of the tornado.

“Hurry!” he cried. “We’ll be able to reach Doctor Stevens’ storm cellar if we run.”

“I can’t run,” gasped Preston. “You youngsters get me to shore. Then save yourselves.”

“We’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Helen.

With their encouragement, Preston made a new effort and they made their escape from the dangerous waters of the lake.

Alone, Helen or Tom could have raced up the hill to Doctor Stevens in less than a minute but with an almost helpless man to drag between them, they made slow progress.

“We’ve got to hurry,” warned Tom as the noise of the storm told of its rapid approach.

“Go on, go on! Leave me here!” urged Preston.

But Helen and Tom were deaf to his pleas and they forced him to use the last of his strength in a desperate race up the hill ahead of the tornado.

Doctor Stevens met them half way up the hill and almost carried Preston the rest of the way.

“Across the street and into my storm cellar,” he told them.

“Is the tornado going to hit the town?” asked Helen as they hurried across the street.

“Can’t tell yet,” replied Doctor Stevens.

“There’s a common belief that the hills and lake protect us so a tornado will never strike here,” said Tom.

“We’ll soon know about that,” said the doctor grimly.

They got the exhausted boatman to the entrance of the cellar, where Mrs. Blair was anxiously awaiting their return.

“Are you all right, Helen?” she asked.

“A little wet on my lower extremities,” replied the young editor of the Herald. “I simply had to go, mother.”

“Of course you did,” said Mrs. Blair. “It was dangerous but I’m proud of you Helen.”

Mrs. Stevens brought out blankets and wrapped them around Jim Preston’s shoulders while Margaret took candles down into the storm cellar.

The noise of the storm had increased to such an intensity that conversation was almost impossible.

Doctor Stevens maintained his watchful vigil, noting every movement of the tornado.

The sky was so dark that the daylight had faded into dusk although it was only a few minutes after three. The whole western sky was filled with coal-black clouds and out of the center of this ominous mass rushed the lashing tongue which was destroying everything it touched.

On and on came the storm, advancing with a deadly relentlessness. A farm house a little more than a mile away on one of the hills overlooking the lake exploded as though a charge of dynamite had been set off beneath it.

“It’s terrible, terrible,” sobbed Margaret Stevens, who had come out of the cellar to watch the storm.

“We’re going to get hit,” Tom warned them.

“I’ve got to get home,” said Jim Preston, struggling out of the blankets which Mrs. Stevens had wrapped around him. “My wife’s all alone.”

“Stay here, Jim,” commanded Doctor Stevens. “You couldn’t get more than three or four blocks before the storm strikes and your place is clear across town. Everybody into the cellar,” he commanded.

Mrs. Stevens and Helen’s mother went first to light the candles. They were followed by Margaret and Helen, then Tom and Jim Preston and finally the doctor, who remained in the doorway on guard.

“What will this do to the Herald?” Helen whispered to Tom.

Her brother nudged her hard.

“Don’t let Mother hear you,” he replied. “There is nothing we can do now except hope. The Herald building may not be destroyed.”

Helen dropped to the floor and her head bowed in prayer. Their father’s illness had been a blow and to have the Herald plant destroyed by a tornado would be almost more than they could bear.

The noise of the tornado was terrific and they felt the earth trembling at the fury of the storm gods.

Helen had seen pictures of towns razed by tornadoes but she had never dreamed that she would be in one herself.

Suddenly the roar of the storm lessened and Doctor Stevens cautiously opened the door of the storm cellar.

“We’re safe!” he cried.

They trooped out of the cellar. The tornado had swung away from Rolfe without striking the town itself and was lashing its way down the center of Lake Dubar.

“It will wear itself out before it reaches the end of the lake,” predicted Jim Preston.

“I don’t believe any houses in town were damaged,” said Doctor Stevens. “A hen house and garage or two may have been unroofed but that will be about all.”

“How about the farmers back in the hills?” asked Helen.

“They must have fared pretty badly if they were in the center of the storm,” said the doctor. “I’m going to get my car and start out that way. Someone may need medical attention.”

“Can I go with you?” asked Helen. “I want to get all the facts about the storm for my story for the Herald.”

“Glad to have you,” said the doctor.

“Count me in,” said Margaret Stevens. “I’ve joined Helen’s staff as her first reporter,” she told her father.

“If you want to go down the lake in the morning and see what happened at the far end I’ll be glad to take you,” suggested Jim Preston. “I’m mighty grateful for what you and Tom did for me and I’ll have the Liberty ready to go by morning.”

“What about the Flyer?” asked Tom.

“I’ll have to fish her out of the lake sometime next week,” grinned the boatman. “I’m lucky even to be here, but I am, thanks to you.”

Doctor Stevens backed his sedan out of the garage and Helen started toward the car.

“You can’t go looking like that,” protested her mother. “Your shoes and hose are wet and dirty and your dress looks something like a mop.”

“Can’t help the looks, mother,” smiled Helen. “I’ll have to go as I am. This is my first big news and the story comes first.”

CHAPTER V
Reporting Plus

Clouds which followed the terrific wind unleashed their burden and a gray curtain of rain swept down from the heavens.

“Get your slickers,” Doctor Stevens called to the girls and Helen raced across the street for her coat and a storm hat.

“Better put on those heavy, high-topped boots you use for hiking,” Tom advised Helen when they had reached the shelter of their own home. “You’ll probably be gone the rest of the afternoon and you’ll need the boots.”

Helen nodded her agreement and rummaged through the down stairs closet for the sturdy boots. She dragged them out and untangled the laces. Then she kicked off her oxfords and started to slide her feet into the boots. Her mother stopped her.

“Put on these woolen stockings,” she said. “Those light silk ones will wear through in an hour and your heels will be chafed raw.”

With heavy stockings and boots on, Helen slipped into the slicker which Tom held for her. She put on her old felt hat just as Doctor Stevens’ car honked.

“Bye, Mother,” she cried. “Don’t worry. I’ll be all right with the doctor and Margaret.”

“Get all the news,” cautioned Tom as Helen ran through the storm and climbed into the doctor’s sedan.

Margaret Stevens was also wearing heavy shoes and a slicker while the doctor had put on knee length rubber boots and a heavy ulster.

“We’ll get plenty of rain before we’re back,” he told the girls, “and we’ll have to walk where the roads are impassable.”

They stopped down town and Doctor Stevens ran into his office to see if any calls had been left for him. When he returned his face was grave.

“What’s the matter?” asked Margaret.

“I called the telephone office,” replied her father, “and they said all the phone wires west of the lake were down but that reports were a number of farm houses had been destroyed by the tornado.”

“Then you think someone may have been hurt?” asked Helen.

“I’m afraid so,” admitted Doctor Stevens as he shifted gears and the sedan leaped ahead through the storm. “We’ll have to trust to luck that we’ll reach farms where the worst damage occurred.”

The wind was still of nearly gale force and the blasts of rain which swept the graveled highway rocked the sedan. There was little conversation as they left Rolfe and headed into the hill country which marked the western valley of Lake Dubar.

The road wound through the hills and Doctor Stevens, unable to see more than fifty feet ahead, drove cautiously.

“Keep a close watch on each side,” he told the girls, “and when you see any signs of unusual damage let me know.”

They were nearly three miles from Rolfe when Margaret told her father to stop.

“There’s a lane to our right that is blocked with fallen tree trunks,” she said.

Doctor Stevens peered through the rain. A mail box leered up at them from a twisted post.

“This is Herb Lauer’s place,” he said. “I’ll get out and go up the lane.”

The doctor picked up his medical case and left the motor running so the heat it generated would keep ignition wires dry.

One window was left open to guard against the car filling with gas and the girls followed him into the storm. They picked their way slowly over the fallen trees which choked the lane. When they finally reached the farmyard a desolate scene greeted them.

The tornado, like a playful giant, had picked up the one story frame house and dashed it against the barn. Both buildings had splintered in a thousand pieces and only a huddled mass of wreckage remained. Miraculously, the corn crib had been left almost unharmed and inside the crib they could see someone moving.

Doctor Stevens shouted and a few seconds later there came an answering cry. The girls followed him to the crib and found the family of Herb Lauer sheltered there.

“Anyone hurt?” asked Doctor Stevens.

“Herb’s injured his arm,” said Mrs. Lauer, who was holding their two young children close to her.

“Think it’s broken, Doc,” said the farmer.

“Broken is right,” said Doctor Stevens as he examined the injury. “I’ll fix up a temporary splint and in the morning you can come down and have it redressed.”

The doctor worked quickly and when he was ready to put on the splint had Margaret and Helen help him. In twenty minutes the arm had been dressed and put in a sling.

“We’ll send help out as soon as we can,” said Doctor Stevens as they turned to go.

Helen had used the time to good advantage, making a survey of the damage done to the farm buildings and learning that they were fully protected by insurance. Mrs. Lauer, between attempts to quiet the crying of the children, had given Helen an eye-witness account of the storm and how they had taken refuge in the corn crib just before the house was swirled from its foundations.

Back in the car, the trio continued their relief trip. The rain abated and a little after four o’clock the sun broke through the clouds. Ditches along the road ran bankful with water and streams they crossed tore at the embankments which confined them.

“The worst is over,” said Doctor Stevens, “and we can be mighty thankful no one has been killed.”

Fifteen minutes later they reached another farm which had felt the effects of the storm. The house had been unroofed but the family had taken refuge in the storm cellar. No one had been injured, except for a few bruises and minor scratches.

At dusk they were fifteen miles west of Rolfe and had failed to find anyone with serious injury.

“We’ve about reached the limit of the storm area,” said Doctor Stevens. “We’ll turn now and start back for Rolfe on the Windham road.”

Their route back led them over a winding road and before they left the main graveled highway Doctor Stevens put chains on his car. They ploughed into the mud, which sloshed up on the sides of the machine and splattered against the windshield until they had to stop and clean the glass.

Half way back to Rolfe they were stopped by a lantern waving in the road.

Doctor Stevens leaned out the window.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

A farmer stepped out of the night into the rays of the lights of the car.

“We need help,” he cried. “The storm destroyed our house and one of my boys was pretty badly hurt. We’ve got to get him to a doctor.”

“I’m Doctor Stevens of Rolfe,” said Margaret’s father as he picked up his case and opened the door.

“We need you doctor,” said the farmer.

Helen and Margaret followed them down the road and into a grassy lane.

Lights were flickering ahead and when they reached a cattle shed they found a wood fire burning. Around the blaze were the members of the farmer’s family and at one side of the fire was the blanket-swathed form of a boy of ten or eleven.

“One of the timbers from the house struck him while he was running for the storm cave,” explained the farmer. “He just crumpled up and hasn’t spoken to us since. It’s as though he was asleep.”

Doctor Stevens examined the boy.

“He got a pretty nasty rap on the head,” he said. “What he needs is a good bed, some warm clothes and hot food. We’ll put him in my car and take him back to Rolfe. He’ll be all right in two or three days.”

The doctor looked about him.

“This is the Rigg Jensen place, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I’m Rigg Jensen,” said the farmer. “You fixed me up about ten years ago when my shotgun went off and took off one of my little toes.”

“I remember that,” said Doctor Stevens. “Now, if you’ll help me carry the lad, we’ll get him down to the car.”

“Hadn’t I better go?” asked Mrs. Jensen. “Eddie may be scared if he wakes up and sees only strangers.”

“Good idea,” said Doctor Stevens, as they picked up the boy and started for the car.

Helen went ahead, carrying the lantern and lighting the way for the men. They made the boy comfortable in the back seat and his mother got in beside him.

“Better come along,” Doctor Stevens told the father.

“Not tonight,” was the reply. “Mother is with Eddie and I know he’ll be all right now. I’ve got to take the lantern and see what happened to the livestock and what we’ve got left.”

There was no complaint in his voice, only a matter-of-factness which indicated that the storm could not have been prevented and now that it was all over he was going to make the best of it.

Half an hour later they reached the gravel highway and sped into Rolfe. Doctor Stevens drove directly to his office and several men on the street helped him carry Eddie Jensen inside.

“You’d better run along home,” he told the girls, “and get something to eat.”

When Helen reached home, Tom was waiting on the porch.

“Get a story?” he asked.

The young editor of the Herald nodded.

“Anyone hurt?” Tom insisted.

“No one seriously injured,” replied Helen, “but a lot of farm buildings were destroyed.”

“I’ve been checking up on the damage down the lake,” said Tom, “that new summer resort on the east shore got the worst of it. The phone office finally got through and they estimate the damage at the resort at about $50,000.”

“Doctor Stevens believes the damage along the west half of the valley will amount to almost a $100,000,” said Helen.

“That’s a real story,” enthused Tom. “It’s big enough to telephone to the state bureau of the Associated Press at Cranston. They’ll be glad to pay us for sending it to them.”

“You telephone,” said Helen. “I’d be scared to death and wouldn’t be able to give them all the facts.”

“You’re the editor,” replied Tom. “It’s your story and you ought to do the phoning. Jot down some notes while I get a connection to Cranston.”

Tom went into the house to put in the long distance call just as Helen’s mother hurried across from the Stevens home.

“Are you all right, dear?” her mother asked.

“Not even wet,” replied Helen. “The coat and boots protected me even in the heaviest rain. Tom’s just gone inside to call the Associated Press at Cranston and I’m going to tell them about the storm.”

“Hurry up there,” came Tom’s voice from inside the house. “The Cranston operator has just answered.”

“And I haven’t had time to think what I’ll say,” added Helen, half to herself.

Without stopping to take off her cumbersome raincoat, she hurried to the telephone stand in the dining room and Tom turned the instrument over to her.

“All ready,” he said.

Helen picked up the telephone and heard a voice at the other end of the wire saying, “This is the state bureau of the Associated Press at Cranston. Who’s calling?”

Mustering up her courage, Helen replied, “this is Helen Blair, editor of the Rolfe Herald. We’ve had a tornado near here this afternoon and I thought you’d want the facts.”

“Glad to have them,” came the peppy voice back over the wire. “Let’s go.”

Helen forgot her early misgivings and briefly and concisely told her story about the storm, giving estimates of damage and the names of the injured. In three minutes she was through.

“Fine story,” said the Associated Press man at Cranston. “We’ll mail you a check the first of the month. And say, you’d better write to us. We can use a live, wide-awake correspondent in your town.”

“Thanks, I will,” replied Helen as she hung up the receiver.

“What did he say?” asked Tom.

“He told me to write them; that they could use a correspondent at Rolfe.”

“That’s great,” exclaimed Tom. “One more way in which we can increase our income and it means that some day you may be able to get a job with the Associated Press.”

“That will have to come later,” said Helen’s mother, “when school days are over.”

“Sure, I know,” said Tom, “but creating a good impression won’t hurt anything.”

Mrs. Blair had a hot supper waiting, hamburger cakes, baking powder biscuits with honey, and tea, and they all sat down to the table for a belated evening meal.

Helen related the events of her trip with Doctor Stevens and Tom grew enthusiastic again over the story.

“It’s the biggest news the Herald has had in years. If we were putting out a daily we’d be working on an extra now. Maybe the Herald will be a daily some day.”

“Rolfe will have to grow a lot,” smiled his mother.

“I guess you’re right,” agreed Tom.

Tom and Helen helped their mother clear away the supper dishes and after that Helen went into the front room and cleared the Sunday papers off the library table. She found some copypaper and a pencil in the drawer and sat down to work on her story of the storm.

The excitement of the storm and the ensuing events had carried her along, oblivious of the fatigue which had increased with the passing hours. But when she picked up her pencil and tried to write, her eyes dimmed and her head nodded. She snuggled her head in her arms to rest for just a minute, she told herself. The next thing she knew Tom was shaking her shoulders.

“Ten o’clock,” he said, “and time for all editors to be in bed.”

Helen tried to rub the sleep from her eyes and Tom laughed uproariously at her efforts.

“It’s no use,” he said. “You’re all tired out. You can write your story in the morning. To bed you go.”

“Have I been asleep all evening?” Helen asked her mother.

“Yes, dear,” was the reply, “and I think Tom’s right. Run along to bed and you’ll feel more like working on your story in the morning.”

Goodnights were said and Helen, only half awake, went to her room, thus ending the most exciting day in her young life.

CHAPTER VI
A New Week Dawns

Monday morning dawned clear and bright. There were no traces in the sky of the storm which on the previous day had devastated so many farms west of Rolfe. The air was warm with a fragrance and sweetness that only a small town knows in springtime.

Helen exchanged greetings with half a dozen people as she hurried down the street to start her first day at the office as editor of the Herald.

Grant Hughes, the postmaster, was busy sweeping out his office but he stopped his work and called to Helen as she turned down the alley-way which led to the Herald office.

“Starting in bright and early, aren’t you?”

“Have to,” smiled Helen, “for Tom and I have only half days in which to put out the paper and do the job work.”

“I know, I know,” mused the old postmaster, “but you’re chips off the old block. You’ll make good.”

“Thanks, Mr. Hughes,” said Helen. “Your believing in us is going to help.”

She hastened on the few steps to the office and opened the doors and windows for the rooms were close and stuffy after being closed overnight. The young editor of the Herald paused to look around the composing room. Tom had certainly done a good job cleaning up the day before. The four steel forms which would hold the type for the week’s edition were in place, ready for the news she would write and the ads which it would be Tom’s work to solicit. The Linotype seemed to be watching her in a very superior but friendly manner and even the old press was polished and cleaned as never before.

Helen returned to the editorial office, rolled a sheet of copypaper into her typewriter, and sat down to write the story of the storm. She might have to change certain parts of the story about the condition of the injured later in the week but she could get the main part of it written while it was still fresh in her memory.

Hugh Blair had always made a point of writing his news stories in simple English and he had drilled Helen and Tom in his belief that the simpler a story is written the more widely it will be read. He had no time for the multitudes of adjectives which many country editors insist upon using, although he felt that strong, colorful words had their place in news stories.

With her father’s beliefs on news writing almost second nature, Helen started her story. It was simple and dramatic, as dramatic as the sudden descent of the storm on the valley. Her fingers moved rapidly over the keyboard and the story seemed to write itself. She finished one page and rolled another into the machine, hardly pausing in her rapid typing.

Page after page she wrote until she finally leaned back in her swivel chair, tired from the strain of her steady work.

She picked up the half dozen pages of typed copy. This was her first big story and she wanted it to read well, to be something of which her father would be proud when he read the copy of the paper they would send him. She went over the story carefully, changing a word here, another there. Occasionally she operated on some of her sentences, paring down the longer ones and speeding up the tempo of the story. It was nine-thirty before she was satisfied that she had done the best she could and she stuck the story on the copy spindle, ready for Tom when he wanted to translate it into type on the Linotype.

Helen slid another sheet of copypaper into her typewriter and headed it “PERSONALS.” Farther down the page she wrote four items about out-of-town people who were visiting in Rolfe. She had just finished her personals when she heard the whistle of the morning train.

The nine forty-five in the morning and the seven-fifteen in the evening were the only trains through Rolfe on the branch line of the A. and T. railroad. The nine forty-five was the upbound train to Cranston, the state capital. It reached Cranston about one o’clock, turned around there and started back a little after three, passing through Rolfe on its down trip early in the evening, its over-night terminal being Gladbrook, the county seat.

Helen picked up a pencil and pad of paper, snapped the lock on the front door and ran for the depot two blocks away. The daily trains were always good for a few personals. She meant to leave the office earlier but had lost track of the time, so intense had been her interest in writing her story of the storm.

The nine forty-five was still half a mile below town and puffing up the grade to the station when Helen reached the platform. She spoke to the agent and the express man and hurried into the waiting room. Two women she recognized were picking up their suit cases when she entered. Helen explained her mission and they told her where they were going. She jotted down the notes quickly for the train was rumbling into town. The local ground to a stop and Helen went to the platform to see if anyone had arrived from the county seat.

One passenger descended, a tall, austere-looking man whose appearance was not in the least inviting but Helen wanted every news item she could get so she approached him, with some misgiving.

“I’m the editor for the Rolfe Herald,” she explained, “and I’d like to have an item about your visit here.”

“You’re what?” exclaimed the stranger.

“I’m the editor of the local paper,” repeated Helen, “and I’d like a story about your visit in town.”

“You’re pretty young for an editor,” persisted the stranger, with a smile that decidedly changed his appearance and made him look much less formidable.

“I’m substituting for my father,” said Helen.

“That quite explains things,” agreed the stranger. “I’m Charles King of Cranston, state superintendent of schools, and I’m making a few inspections around the state. If you’d like, I’ll see you again before I leave and tell you what I think of your school system here.”

“I’m sure you’ll thoroughly approve,” said Helen. “Mr. Fowler, the superintendent, is very progressive and has fine discipline.”

“I’ll tell him he has a good booster in the editor,” smiled Mr. King. “Now, if you’ll be good enough to direct me to the school I’ll see that you get a good story out of my visit here.”

Helen supplied the necessary directions and the state superintendent left the depot.

The nine forty-five, with its combination mail and baggage car and two day coaches, whistled out and Helen returned to the Herald office.

She found a farmer from the east side of the valley waiting for her.

“I’d like to get some sale bills printed,” he said, “and I’ll need about five hundred quarter page bills. How much will they cost?”

Helen opened the booklet with job prices listed and gave the farmer a quotation on the job.

“Sounds fair enough,” he said. “At least it’s a dollar less than last year.”

“Paper doesn’t cost quite as much,” explained Helen, “and we’re passing the saving on to you. Be sure and tell your neighbors about our reasonable printing prices.”

“I’ll do that,” promised the farmer. “I’ll bring in the copy Tuesday and get the bills Friday morning.”

“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.

“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 DAMAGE
NEAR ROLFE SUNDAY; MISSES TOWN
BUT 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.

“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.

“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.

Helen in the Editor's Chair

HELENIN THEEDITOR’S CHAIR

CHAPTER CONTENTS

Helen in the Editor’s Chair

CHAPTER IThe Weekly Herald

CHAPTER IIStartling News

CHAPTER IIIIn the Editor’s Chair

CHAPTER IVThrough the Storm

CHAPTER VReporting Plus

CHAPTER VIA New Week Dawns

CHAPTER VIIThe First Issue

CHAPTER VIIIMystery in the Night

CHAPTER IXRescue on Lake Dubar

CHAPTER XBehind the Footlights