More Adventures of the Great Brain

by John D. Fitzgerald

  “Why have you kept that old Ramage Press in that crate in the rear of the Advocate office all these years?” Tom asked.

  “Sentimental reasons, I guess,” Papa answered. “I published my first newspaper in Utah on that press, The Silverlode Advocate, when Silverlode was a booming mining town.”

  “Can I have it?” Tom asked eagerly.

  “What in the world would you do with it?” Papa asked.

  “J.D. and I can clean out a corner in the barn,” Tom said quickly. “We could practice being newspapermen.”

  Papa appeared to be thinking about it for a moment. “The press is just lying there,” he finally said, “and the type that goes with it is in the crate. I couldn’t use the type when I bought the Washington Press, which uses a larger type.”

  Mamma helped Papa make up his mind. “Let the boys have it,” she said.

  “Why not?” Sweyn asked. “Then the little grade-school kids can play at being journalists.”

  Tom glared at my oldest brother. “I’ll make you eat those words someday,” he said.

  “No quarreling,” Mamma said.

  Papa smiled. “All right, T.D.,” he said. “You can have the Ramage Press.”

  We moved the Ramage Press to the barn that afternoon. Then Papa showed Tom how to set type in what he called the make-ready. I didn’t know why Papa was bothering because Tom had watched him set type many times and probably could have done it blindfolded with his great brain. Then Papa oiled the press and put the make-ready in the bed of the press. He put a card on it and turned the wheel of the press. Then he lifted out the calling card and handed it to Tom. I peeked over my brother’s shoulder and read:

  T. D. FITZGERALD

  “There you are, T.D.,” Papa said. “You can start learning to be a journalist by printing calling cards for all your friends.”

  * * *

  The next morning after Tom and I had done our chores, he told me to get my wagon and follow him. We went to the rear of the Z.C.M.I. store. Tom went inside and asked Mr. Harmon if we could have one of his big wooden packing crates. Mr. Harmon came to the rear loading platform of the store. He told us we could take any wooden crate except the one a dog called Old Butch used for a home. Tom and I loaded the big wooden box on my wagon. When we got to the barn, he sent me to the toolshed for a hammer.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Make a desk,” he answered.

  He finished making himself a desk by noon.

  After lunch I followed Tom to the barn, where he practiced setting type until the kids came by for us to go swimming. Tom said he didn’t feel like going. It was a hot afternoon and just right for swimming so I went along.

  Tom didn’t go swimming with us for the next two days, staying in the barn working with his press. Then I figured he got tired of being a journalist because he joined us swimming and playing until we’d finished delivering the weekly Advocate the following Tuesday.

  “Take my bike,” he said as we returned home, “and go tell Basil, Sammy, Danny, Seth, and Jimmie Peterson to meet me in our barn right after lunch.”

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “You’ll find out this afternoon,” Tom said mysteriously.

  I was curious, especially when Tom locked the door from the inside and wouldn’t let any of us in until I told him everybody was there. Then he unlocked the door from the inside but told me not to let anybody in until he called to me.

  “All right, J.D.,” I heard him shout a moment later, “you can all come in now.”

  I walked into the barn with the other kids and stood staring pop-eyed. Tom was seated behind his desk wearing a green eye shade and an old printer’s apron that Papa must have given him. There was a printed sign tacked to a piece of two-by-four on the desk which read:

  THE ADENVILLE BUGLE

  T. D. FITZGERALD

  EDITOR AND PUBLISHER

  Laid out on his desk were six printed calling cards, which we all crowded around to read:

  THIS IS TO CERTIFY

  is a reporter for

  THE ADENVILLE BUGLE

  Then Tom leaned back on his nail keg chair and put his thumbs under his armpits.

  “How many of you would like to be reporters for my newspaper?” he asked.

  We all raised our hands.

  “Do you know what a reporter does?” Tom asked.

  Sammy Leeds nodded. “Sure,” he said. “A reporter reports the news to his editor.”

  “Right,” Tom said. “A good reporter is one who keeps his eyes and ears open and reports the news whether it is good or bad. But how many of you know what is news and what isn’t news?”

  It was a tough question because nobody answered.

  “I will tell you,” Tom said. “If everybody in town knows something, then it isn’t news. If only a very few people know something, then it is news to the rest of the people.”

  Danny Forester shrugged helplessly. “How are we going to know if only a few people or a lot of people know something?” he asked.

  “Easy,” Tom said. “If you overhear somebody say to somebody else, ‘don’t breathe a word of this to anyone,’ that is news. If you hear somebody say, ‘I wouldn’t want this to go any further,’ that is news. There are a lot of things in this town only a few people know about. It will be your job as reporters to find out what these are.”

  “But,” Sammy protested and without his sly look on his city-slicker face, “my Pa and Ma never talk about things like that until after I go to bed.”

  “Then stay awake and sneak down the stairways and listen,” Tom said. “The only local news my father prints is what people tell him when they want him to print it. For example, what was the local news in the Advocate delivered this morning? Mrs. Hanson left Friday to visit her sister in Provo. Mrs. Leonard entertained the Ladies’ Sewing Circle at her home last Thursday. Mr. Phillips was made a deacon in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mrs. Sheldon gave birth to a baby boy last Wednesday night. This isn’t real news for my money. By the time the Advocate comes out on Tuesday everybody knows it. I don’t want this kind of news for the Bugle. I want the kind of news that will reveal the deep secrets in this town that the public is entitled to know. Now line up, men, and I’ll give you your press cards and assignments.”

  “Basil, your assignment will be the Palace Cafe your father owns. Strangers in town eat there and what they say may be news to people who live here. Seth, your mother is the biggest gossip in town. It will be your job to report the gossip. Jimmie, your mother runs a boardinghouse, so you listen to what everybody says, and report anything that is news. Danny, your father owns the barbershop and barbers hear a lot of things other people don’t know. Your assignment is to find out what these things are. Sammy, your father gets into more arguments than any man in town. It will be your job to report about any of these arguments everybody doesn’t know about. J.D., you will cover the Marshal’s office and report who is arrested and why.”

  Then Tom stood up and placed his hands on his desk. “We’ve got a newspaper to get out by Saturday, men,” he said dramatically. “You will all report here Friday afternoon right after lunch to turn in your news stories.”

  I watched the other reporters swagger out of our barn and then looked at Tom. “I don’t think Papa intended for you to get out a real newspaper in competition with his newspaper,” I said. “He isn’t going to like it.”

  “I know, J.D.,” Tom said, “but it is the only way I can convince Papa that I’m old enough to help him at the Advocate.”

  I left the barn and ran all the way to the Marshal’s office. Uncle Mark was sitting in his swivel chair at his rolltop desk. I was disappointed not to see any prisoners in the three cells. I showed him my press card and asked him if there was any news about robberies or murders or cattle rustling.

  “I’m afraid not, John,” he said. Then he got me to tell him about Tom starting a newspaper in competition with Papa. I didn’t think it was funny, b
ut it made Uncle Mark laugh like all get out.

  But the next morning Uncle Mark sure wasn’t laughing because the Adenville Bank was robbed of more than ten thousand dollars during the night. These robbers didn’t ride into town in the daytime and hold up the bank and ride out of town the way outlaws should. If they had, Uncle Mark could have formed a posse and tracked them down. Papa told us during lunch what a dirty trick these robbers had played on my uncle.

  Uncle Mark always kept a close watch on the two saloons on the east side of the railroad tracks because that was where fights and trouble usually started. After the saloons closed, he went to bed because everybody else in town was in bed by then. It was while everybody was asleep that the robbers acted.

  They entered the home of Calvin Whitlock, the banker, at about two in the morning. They picked a good time because his sister was in Salt Lake City visiting relatives and his housekeeper, Mrs. Hazzleton, went to her own house at night. Mr. Whitlock was a widower who had never remarried and didn’t have any children.

  Nobody in Adenville locked their doors at night so it was no trick for the robbers to enter the house. They sneaked into the banker’s bedroom and woke Mr. Whitlock. They were wearing long yellow rain slickers, had their hats pulled way down on their heads so he couldn’t see their hair, and were wearing masks made from red bandana handkerchiefs with holes cut in them so they could see. One of them put a pistol to Mr. Whitlock’s head and motioned for him to get out of bed and get dressed. Without speaking a word they marched the banker to the Adenville Bank and made him open the door with his key. Using sign language the robber with the pistol gave Mr. Whitlock the choice of opening the safe or having his brains blown out. Mr. Whitlock decided his life was worth more than the money and opened the safe. The robbers tied him to a chair and put a gag in his mouth. Then they put the money from the safe into an old leather valise and left.

  Nobody knew what had happened until Mrs. Hazzleton went to call Mr. Whitlock for breakfast and found the banker’s bedroom empty. She telephoned Uncle Mark, who got Frank Collopy, who worked in the bank, to open the front door of the bank. They found Mr. Whitlock still tied to the chair.

  “If the robbery isn’t solved,” Papa said as he finished telling us about it at lunch, “the depositors at the bank will lose their money.”

  I ran to the Marshal’s office after lunch and found Uncle Mark studying wanted posters. I showed him my press card in case he’d forgotten I was a genuine reporter.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Uncle Mark looked plenty worried. “I thought I might get a lead from some of these wanted posters,” he said. “But I can’t find a single wanted man who ever pulled off a bank robbery like this one at night.”

  There was one thing I really liked about Uncle Mark. He never talked down to Tom and me, but treated us just like grownups.

  “Maybe they left town right after the robbery,” I said, trying to be helpful.

  “I wish they had,” Uncle Mark said. “That would give me a lead. Horses make tracks. And if they had left town they would have headed for the Nevada line taking the shortcut over the Frisco mountains. But I rode out and checked this morning. There are no fresh tracks turning off the road toward the Nevada line. And I checked out all the drifters and strangers who were in town yesterday. They are all still here.”

  “If nobody can identify them how can you catch them?” I asked.

  “Stolen money always burns a hole in a robber’s pocket,” Uncle Mark said. “I don’t want Tom printing this in his newspaper but I’ll just wait until one of them starts spending a lot of money in the saloons drinking and gambling.”

  “What if they don’t?” I asked, trying to be helpful.

  “Then I’ll just keep an eye on any strangers or drifters who leave town suddenly and get a posse and track them down,” Uncle Mark answered.

  * * *

  When I returned home, I found Tom at his desk in the barn. I told him what Uncle Mark had said.

  “Uncle Mark is a good peace officer,” Tom said, “but he isn’t using his head. These robbers are too slick to start spending a lot of money in town and too smart to leave town until things cool off so no suspicion will be attached to them. And I don’t believe the robbery was pulled by any drifters or strangers in town.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because the robbers took too much care in making sure they couldn’t be identified,” Tom said. “They didn’t even speak, which means one of them or maybe both were afraid Mr. Whitlock would recognize their voice.”

  “Well, they sure aren’t Mormons,” I said, “because Mormons don’t go around robbing banks. And they sure don’t live on this side of town because everybody living west of the tracks are law-abiding citizens.”

  “Good thinking, J.D.,” Tom said. “That leaves just somebody living in the Sheepmen’s Hotel or the rooming house on the other side of the railroad tracks. Which means they must eat their meals in the Palace Cafe or in the Sheepmen’s Hotel restaurant. And that gives me an idea. Go get Basil.”

  “I no got no news yet,” Basil said when we entered the barn. “I sit in corner of cafe and listen to customers for supper last night until eight o’clock but no hear no news.”

  “I think the men who robbed the bank must eat some of their meals in your father’s cafe,” Tom said. “As one of my reporters, it will be your job to listen to the customers without letting them know you are listening.”

  “How I do that?” Basil asked.

  “You can hide behind the counter in the dining room where your father keeps his pies and cakes and things,” Tom said. “You can listen to what the customers say without them knowing it.”

  “Maybe Papa don’t let me,” Basil said.

  “Show him your press card and tell him you work for me,” Tom said. “Tell him it is a part of being one-hundred-percent American boy.”

  The next morning after doing my share of the morning chores I went to the Marshal’s Office. Uncle Mark wasn’t there but there was a prisoner in one of the cells. It was Mr. Haggerty, who got drunk every couple of weeks and disturbed the peace so much that Uncle Mark had to lock him up until he was sober. He was sitting on the bunk in his cell holding his head in his hands. Since it was my duty as a reporter to interview all prisoners, I walked to the door of the cell.

  “Mr. Haggerty, why do you get drunk?” I asked.

  He raised his head and looked at me with bloodshot eyes. “It’s that wife of mine, sonny,” he said. “She nags and nags at me until I have to get drunk or go out of my mind.”

  I figured this was news because nobody but me and Mr. Haggerty knew why he got drunk. I made a note of it in my reporter’s notebook.

  Friday afternoon right after lunch all the reporters arrived at our barn to turn in their reports. Tom sat behind his desk with his green eye shade over his eyes. He had a pencil in his hand and a big notebook on his desk. He asked me to report first. I told him what Mr. Haggerty had told me.

  “Very good, J.D.,” Tom said as he wrote in his notebook. “That is news. I’ve often wondered why he got drunk.”

  One by one Sammy, Seth, Danny, and Jimmie made their reports. All of them had one or more items that Tom considered newsworthy enough to write in his notebook.

  “You’re next, Basil,” he said.

  “I wait until other reporters leave,” Basil said.

  “Some reporter,” Sammy said with a sneer. “He didn’t get any news.”

  Tom had an excited look on his face as he ordered the other reporters to leave. When all of them had left the barn, he looked at Basil.

  “You found out something about the robbery?” he asked with excitement.

  “I know who rob bank,” Basil said proudly. “I no want to say in front of other reporters. Afraid maybe they tell before Bugle is published.”

  “Wow!” Tom shouted. “What a story!” Then he gripped his pencil. “Let’s have it, Basil.”

  Basil told us he was pretty do
wnhearted by Thursday evening because he hadn’t heard anything from customers at the cafe that sounded like news. He asked his father if he could stay up hiding behind the counter until the cafe closed at nine o’clock. At first his father said no, but when Basil explained he would lose his job as a reporter on the Bugle if he didn’t get some news, his father agreed.

  At eight-thirty two customers entered the cafe for a late supper. They sat down at a table and ordered steaks smothered in onions and hash-brown potatoes, apple pie, and coffee. Mr. Kokovinis went into the kitchen to prepare the meal. Basil’s mother was in the apartment where they lived above the cafe. Basil took a chance and peeked around the corner of the counter. He recognized Hank Williams, who had been working in the livery stable since coming to town about three months ago. He was a regular customer at the cafe. The other man was Frank Jackson, who had also been a regular customer in the cafe since coming to town a couple of weeks ago. His father had told him that Jackson was a gambler. Basil was about to give up when he heard the men begin to quarrel about the robbery.

  “I say, let’s take the loot and blow town,” Jackson said.

  “Keep your voice down,” Williams said.

  “The Greek is in the kitchen and can’t hear us,” Jackson said.

  “We made a bargain when I sent for you,” Williams said. “If we pull out right away, the Marshal will put two and two together and be right on our tail with a posse. But if we just stick it out for a month and then pull out, it won’t attract any suspicion. We pulled off a perfect robbery, and if we just stick to our bargain we can never be arrested for it.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Jackson said. “But are you sure nobody will find that valise in the livery stable?”

  “I’ve got it well hidden under some hay,” Williams said.

  Basil remained behind the counter until the men had eaten and left the cafe.

  “Did you tell your father?” Tom asked as Basil finished his story.

  “No,” Basil answered. “Afraid Papa want to tell Marshal.”