by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER II _Startling News_
The last paper folded, Helen removed the heavy apron and washed her handsat the sink behind the press. When she entered the editorial office Tomwas putting the last of the papers through the mailer. They gathered themup, 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 thensee Doctor Stevens on our way home. He's usually in his office at thistime."
Tom agreed and, after putting away the mailing machine, locked the backdoor, closed the windows in the shop and announced that he was ready togo.
Helen locked the front door and they walked down main street toward thewhite, one-story building which housed the office of Doctor Stevens, thetown's only physician.
Tom was tall and slender with wavy, brown hair and brown eyes that werealways alive with interest. Helen came scarcely above his shoulder, butshe was five feet two of concentrated energy. She had left her tam at theoffice and the afternoon sun touched her blond hair with gold. Her eyeswere the same clear blue as her mother's and the rosy hue in her cheeksgave hint of her vitality.
They entered Doctor Stevens' waiting room and found the genial physicianreading 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 aboutDad."
"Why, what's the matter with your father?" asked the doctor, adjustinghis glasses.
"Dad wasn't feeling very well when I came down from school atthree-thirty," said Tom, "and when I started the afternoon press run, hewent into the office to rest a while. When Helen came in a little afterfour, 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 morethan anything else. He's afraid of something and it has worried him untilhe 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, "andI 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 aftersupper. Make it look like a little social visit and it will give you agood excuse to give Dad the once over. We'll be ever so much relieved ifyou will."
"Of course I will," the doctor assured them. "You're probably worryingabout some little thing and the more you think about it, the larger itgrows. Possibly a little touch of stomach trouble. What have you beentrying to cook, lately?" he asked Helen.
"Couldn't be my cooking," she replied. "I haven't done any for a week andyou know that Mother's good cooking would never make anyone ill."
"I'll come over about seven-thirty," promised Doctor Stevens, "and don'tyou two worry yourselves over this. Your father will be all right in aday 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 thelake, 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-shadedstreet and climbed a gentle hill. Their home stood on a knoll overlookingthe lake. It was an old-fashioned house that had started out as a threeroom cottage. Additions had been made until it rambled away in severaldirections. It boasted no definite style of architecture, but had ahominess that few houses possess. From the long, open front porch, therewas an unobstructed view down the lake, which stretched away in thedistance, its far reaches hidden in the coming twilight. A speed boat,being loaded with the afternoon mail for the summer resorts down thelake, was sputtering at the big pier at the foot of main street. A bundleof _Heralds_ was placed on the boat and then it whisked away down thelake, 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 decidedtouches of gray but her face still held the peachbloom of youth and shelooked more like an older sister than a mother. She had been a teacher inthe high school at Rolfe when Hugh Blair had come to edit the countrypaper. The teacher and the editor had fallen in love and she had given upteaching and married him.
"How's Dad?" Helen asked.
"He doesn't feel very well," her mother replied and Helen could see linesof worry around her mother's eyes.
"Don't worry, Mother," she counselled. "Dad has been working too hardthis year. In two more weeks school will be over and Tom and I can domost of the work on the paper. You two can plan on a fine trip and a realrest this summer."
"I hope so," said Mrs. Blair, "for your father certainly needs a changeof some kind."
Helen helped her mother with the preparations for supper, setting thetable and carrying the food from the kitchen to the dining room wherebroad 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 theirfather to come from his bedroom. They could hear low voices for severalminutes and finally Mrs. Blair returned to the dining room.
"We'll go ahead and eat," she managed to smile. "Your father doesn't feellike supper right now."
Tom started to say something, but Helen shook her head and they sat downand started their evening meal.
Mrs. Blair, usually gay and interested in the activities of the day, hadlittle to say, but Helen talked of school and the activities and plans ofthe 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'regiving the seniors the finest banquet they've ever had."
Whereupon they fell into a heated argument over the merits of thesophomores and juniors, a question which had been debated all yearwithout a definite decision. Sometimes Tom considered himself the victorwhile 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 kitchenand 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 chinwith Hugh for a while."
"Hugh isn't feeling very well," said Mrs. Blair. "He came home from theoffice this afternoon and didn't want anything for supper."
"Let me have a look at him," said Doctor Stevens. "Suppose his stomach isout of whack or something like that."
Tom and Helen, standing in the dining room, watched Doctor Stevens andtheir mother go down the hall to their father's bedroom.
The next half hour was one of the longest in their young lives. Tom triedto read the continued story in the _Herald_, while Helen fussed at firstone thing and then another.
The door of their father's room finally opened and Doctor Stevenssummoned them.
Neither Tom nor Helen would ever forget the scene in their father'sbedroom 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 thelines of pain which Helen had noticed in his face that afternoon haddeepened. His hands were moving nervously and his eyes were bright withfever.
"Sit down," said Doctor Stevens as he took a chair beside Hugh Blair'sbed.
Tom was about to ask his father how he felt, when Doctor Stevens spokeagain.
"We might as well face this thing together," he said. "I'll
tell you nowthat it is going to be something of a fight for all of you, but unlessI'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 tosome southwestern state for a number of months. Perhaps it will only takesix months, but it may be longer."
"But I can't be away that long," protested Hugh Blair. "I must think ofmy family, of the _Herald_."
"Your family must think of you now," said Doctor Stevens firmly. "That'swhy 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 yearsbent over his desk in that dark cubbyhole of his--too many years withouta vacation. Now he's got to give that up and devote a number of months tobuilding up his body again."
Helen felt the blood racing through her body. Her throat went dry and herhead ached. She had realized only that afternoon that her father wasn'twell 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 yourselfinto 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'smother.
"Just as soon as we can arrange things," replied Doctor Stevens. "This isThursday. I'd like to have him on the way by Saturday night. Every daycounts."
"That's impossible," protested Hugh Blair, half rising from his bed. "Idon't see how I can possibly afford it. Think of the expense of a tripdown there, of living there. What about the _Herald_? What about myfamily?"
A plan had been forming in Helen's mind from the time Doctor Stevens hadsaid her father must go to a different climate.
"Everything will be all right, Dad," she said. "There isn't a reason inthe 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, youcan 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 comeabove 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 atwinkle in his eyes.
"We can run the paper in fine shape, Dad," said Tom. "If you hiredsomeone from outside to come in and take charge it would eat up all theprofits. If Helen and I run the _Herald_, we'll have every cent we makefor 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 usingtheir college money, but it is right that you should. I am sure that theycan 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 andhe agreed to excuse them from half their classes for the remaining weeksof school with the provision that they must pass all of their finalexaminations.
Friday and Saturday passed all too quickly. Helen busied herselfcollecting the current accounts and Tom spent part of the time at theoffice 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 fatherhad placed in their college account. The only money left was $112 in the_Herald_ account, just enough to take care of running expenses of thepaper.
Hugh Blair owned his home and his paper, was proud of his family and hishost of friends, but of actual worldly wealth he had little.
Doctor Stevens drove them to the Junction thirty miles away where HughBlair was to take the Southwestern limited. There was little conversationduring the drive.
The limited was at the junction when they arrived and goodbyes werebrief.
Hugh Blair said a few words to his wife, who managed to smile through hertears. Then he turned to Tom and Helen.
"Take good care of the _Herald_," he told them, as he gave them a goodbyehug.
"We will Dad and you take good care of yourself," they called as heclimbed into the Pullman.
Cries of "boooo-ard," sounded along the train. The porters swung theirfootstools up into the vestibules, the whistle sounded two short, sharpblasts, and the limited rolled away from the station.
Tom, Helen and their mother stood on the platform until the traindisappeared behind a hill.
When they turned toward home, Tom and Helen faced the biggestresponsibility of their young lives. It was up to them to continue thepublication of the _Herald_, to supply the money to keep their home goingand to build up a reserve which their father could call upon if he wasforced to use all the money from their college fund.
