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Helen in the Editor's Chair

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<h2 id="c8"> CHAPTER VIII Mystery in the Night</h2> 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.” <div class="pb" id="Page_112">[112]</div> “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. <div class="pb" id="Page_113">[113]</div> “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. <div class="pb" id="Page_114">[114]</div> “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. <div class="pb" id="Page_115">[115]</div> “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. <div class="pb" id="Page_116">[116]</div> 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.” <div class="pb" id="Page_117">[117]</div> 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. <div class="pb" id="Page_118">[118]</div> “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. <div class="pb" id="Page_119">[119]</div> “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. <div class="pb" id="Page_120">[120]</div> 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. <div class="pb" id="Page_121">[121]</div> 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. <div class="pb" id="Page_122">[122]</div> 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. <div class="pb" id="Page_123">[123]</div> “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! <div class="pb" id="Page_124">[124]</div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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