CHAPTER I_Joan of the Journal

JOAN OF THE JOURNAL

[Illustration: It was the story of the Charity Play]

JOAN OF THE JOURNAL

Helen Diehl Olds

ILLUSTRATED BY ROBB BEEBE

GROSSET & DUNLAP

Publishers New York

By arrangement with D. Appleton-Century Company

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To my sons

Bob and Jerry

just because ...

CONTENTS

I. JOAN GETS A JOB

II. THE JOURNAL FAMILY

III. JOAN ON THE BEAT

IV. “NO MORE MISTAKES”

V. THE ANNUAL OUTING

VI. TIM’S SECOND WARNING

VII. CHUB GETS AN IDEA

VIII. CHUB TAKES A HAND

IX. A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE

X. TOMMY-BY-THE-DAY

XI. THE DAY NURSERY

XII. RICH BOY, POOR BOY

XIII. ERIC

XIV. SACRED COW

XV. JOAN MEETS ALEX

XVI. THE HONOR SYSTEM

XVII. TIM MAKES THE FRONT PAGE

XVIII. DUMMY’S STORY

XIX. THE COMMA’S TAIL

ILLUSTRATIONS

It was the story of the Charity Play

“I’ll talk with this young woman alone,” he said

“Mark ’em ‘first’ and ‘second’,” Tim shouted

“Are you a deaf-mute or aren’t you?”

CHAPTER I

JOAN GETS A JOB

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Joan called over her shoulder to Mother, as

she scurried around past the lilac bushes by the kitchen windows.

Oh, suppose she were too late!

Tim had gone into the _Journal_ office, just as she had started doing

the dishes. Joan rarely minded doing dishes, because the windows above

the kitchen sink looked across at the _Journal_ office and she could

watch everything that went on over there. Usually, she lingered over the

dishes, just as she hustled over the bed making because the bedrooms

were on the other side of the house. But to-day, she had done the dishes

in less than no time, because she wanted to be nearer the scene of

action than the kitchen windows.

She hurried now, though it was rather undignified for a person fourteen

years old to run in a public place like this. That was the trouble with

living right down town. No privacy. Joan thought of the rows and rows of

new homes out at the end of Market Street, and then looked back at her

own little home—also on Market Street. It was a tiny, red brick house,

tucked in between the _Journal_ office and the county court house, set

back behind a space of smooth green lawn. It was like living in a public

square. But Joan had lived there all her life and really loved the

excitement of it.

Uncle John, who was general manager of the paper, would probably be busy

and tell Tim to wait, as though he were just anybody applying for a

summer-time job and not his own nephew, Joan’s seventeen-year-old

brother.

Joan crossed the green plot to the nearest window of the _Journal_—she

had climbed in and out of those windows as a little girl. She could see

Chub, the red-haired office boy, wandering around. He was never very

busy this time of the afternoon after the paper was on the press. Joan

was as much at home in the _Journal_ office as in her own brick house

next door. As a baby, she had often curled up on a heap of newspapers

and taken her nap, regardless of the roar and throb of the presses. That

was when Daddy had been alive and had been city editor. He had been so

proud of his baby girl that he had often taken her to work with him in

an afternoon when Mother was busy and things at the office were slack.

She had grown up with the roar and clatter of the machines, and the

smell of hot ink, and she loved it all, just as other girls might love a

battered old piano in the parlor—just because it spelled home.

Uncle John’s office was at the end of the editorial rooms, just by the

swinging door into the composing room. “Sanctum sanctorum” she and Tim

called Uncle John’s office. Joan stationed herself out of sight, under

the buckeye tree, and peered through the dirty, streaked window. She

could see Uncle John’s desk, with its crowded cubby-holes, frayed

blotter, and books about to fall off.

She craned her neck and saw Tim standing before the desk, twisting his

cap in his hands. Of course, talking to Uncle John wasn’t anything, but

asking for a job as a cub reporter was. They were talking together, and

Tim looked so serious, Joan would hardly have recognized him.

Oh, he had to get that job! It was during graduation week, when Tim had

had to have a new outfit for the commencement exercises, that Mother had

done some figuring and suddenly discovered that perhaps there would not

be enough money for college for Tim, after all. Tim had had his heart

set on going to the State University at Columbus that fall. Joan herself

had even dreamed of attending the big football games while he was there,

and when they cheered, “Martin! Atta boy, Martin!” she would say, as

modestly as she could, “That’s my brother!” Tim was good in all

sports—had been a leader in them all through high school. It was the

only thing he really liked, but, in a town like Plainfield, excelling in

sports offered no method of earning money during the summer months.

Tim had stalked about for days, gloomy as could be, after Mother’s

announcement. Then one evening, when Uncle John had dropped in for

supper, he had said, “Want a job, do you? Well, come over, and talk to

me some time. Maybe I can fix you up. We’re adding new names to the pay

roll every week, and you might as well get yours on, too.”

If he’d said anything like that to Joan, she would have been in seventh

heaven, she thought. But Tim seemed only mildly thrilled. Of course, he

wanted the job, but it was only a job to Tim, while a job on the

_Journal_ had been Joan’s lifelong dream.

Finally, as she watched now, she saw Uncle John get up and walk around

his desk. He shook hands with Tim and patted him on the shoulder. Tim

grinned all over his face, then turned and went out the door, while

Uncle John went back to his cluttered desk. Joan could have watched Tim

as he went through the editorial rooms and the business office and the

front door of the _Journal_, for there were rows of windows all facing

her own green yard, but instead, she turned and raced to their kitchen

door.

“Mother!” her voice vibrated through the old house. “Tim got the job!”

Mrs. Martin looked up from the oven where she had slipped in a cake, and

smiled. “That’s nice.”

Joan sank down on a kitchen chair that was peeling its paint. “Mother,

it’s wonderful!”

“Joan, don’t get so excited.” The oven door banged. “It’s not you that’s

got the job.”

“I really feel as though it was, honest,” declared the girl. “You know,

I’ve always dreamed of having a job on the _Journal_ and now I have

it—or rather Tim has, but it’s all in the family.”

“You should have been a boy, Jo,” Mrs. Martin made her oft-repeated

remark. As it was, Joan’s dark, straight hair was always given a boyish

bob, and there were some boyish freckles on her short nose, too. “Tim

may be the image of his father, but you’re just the way he was, crazy

about the newspaper. I don’t see what you see in it. Though I guess it

has been better since John’s been managing it. But as soon as we can

sell this house without a loss, we’ll move.”

“Mother!” Joan wouldn’t feel she were living without the _Journal_ next

door. But she didn’t take her mother’s words seriously. Mother was

always talking vaguely of selling the house and had suggested it in

earnest recently. The interest on the mortgage was high and being in a

business block, it was hard to find a buyer. If she could retain it,

until some one wanted it for business purposes, they might make a nice

profit. But Plainfield was a slow-growing town. Uncle John advised

holding it until some one wanted it for a business.

“Your poor father just slaved for that paper, and it never got him

anywhere,” went on her mother. “I hope you get over the notion of being

a reporter by the time you’re Tim’s age, and take up stenography.”

“Ugh.” Joan made a little face. “Office work—not me!”

No, she was going to be a reporter, no matter what. Hadn’t Daddy taught

her to typewrite when she was only eleven, and didn’t even Tim think she

was a “pretty good typist”? Daddy had always said she had a “nose for

news,” too. She remembered feeling her pug nose speculatively the first

time he said that, wondering what it meant. Her nose did turn up

inquisitively. Now she knew, “nose for news” meant she had the natural

curiosity that it took to make a good reporter.

Then the door opened and Tim came in, still wearing the broad grin with

which he had left the _Journal_ office.

“I’m glad you got it, son.” Mrs. Martin spoke before Tim could say a

word.

“Just like that kid, to tell everything before any one else gets a

chance.”

He was really cross. That’s the way he was most of the time, these days.

They had been good chums until his senior year in High School, when he

had assumed such superior airs. He had acted especially high and mighty

since his graduation last week. As far as Joan could find out, he had

nothing against her except her age. Could she help it that she was

nearly four years the younger? She was almost as tall as Amy Powell, her

best friend, and Amy was fifteen years old. He was usually nice to Amy,

too, but then Amy had a grown-up way around the boys.

Only at times did he seem the same old brother. To think that only a

year ago they had been such chums, even to having a secret code between

them. When she was small, it had amused her to learn that Tim’s real

name, Timothy, was also the name of a grain. “Oats and beans and

barley,” she used to sing the old song at him, and somehow or other in

their play that phrase came to mean, “Danger. Look out.” It had been

convenient lots of times in their games, Hie Spy and Run Sheep Run. But

they hadn’t used it for a long time now.

“Tim, I just couldn’t help telling. I was so excited.” She tried to make

her dark eyes sober and her voice sorry sounding, now.

“She’s the limit.” Tim turned to his mother. “Reads what I’m writing

over my shoulder and breathes down my neck till I’m nearly crazy.”

He, like Mother, refused to believe she was in earnest about being a

reporter.

“You ought to be glad I do snoop around,” Joan told him, as she wiped

off the table for Mother. “You know Edna Ferber’s _Dawn O’Hara_ was

rescued from the wastebasket by her sister, so you see! When do you

start in?”

“To-morrow.” Tim drew up his shoulders, proudly. “Uncle John says they

really need a cub reporter since they put Mack on Sports. That’s the

place I’d really like! But—they need a cub, and I’m it. Decent enough

salary, too, Mother; I’ll be able to pay you some board, besides saving

for the University.”

Mother smiled. “That’s fine!”

“I stopped at Nixon’s desk and he gave me my beat.” Tim pulled a scrap

of yellow paper from his pocket.

“What _is_ your beat?” Joan squirmed to see.

He let her read:

Railway Station

Flower Shops

Library

Post Office

“I have to go round there every day and scare up news,” he said. “The

rest of the time, I’ll be busy doing obits and rewrites.” (That meant

obituary notices and articles rewritten from other newspapers.)

Joan gazed at him over the plates and things she was carrying into the

china closet. She always just drained them, and they were dry now. “And

can I go with you?”

“On my beat?” came the scandalized echo. “I should say not!”

But, as she put the plates away, Joan schemed to go. How else could she

learn what a cub reporter did on his beat? And since she wanted to be a

reporter some day herself, she must not miss this opportunity.

“And I mustn’t make any mistakes.” Tim followed her into the dining

room. “Uncle John says we can’t stand a black eye with election time

coming off in the fall.”

“Why, what has that to do with it?” Joan asked.

Tim, always willing to display his knowledge, went on to explain that a

man named William Berry from Western Ohio and called “Billy Berry” in

political circles, was running for governor of the state. He had bought

the _Journal’s_ rival, _The Morning Star_, the only other newspaper in

town, and was trying every way to “get in good with the people,” to

insure his election. The _Journal_, opposed to certain methods and past

actions of Billy Berry, had had to double their efforts against this

man, who was not the right one for governor at all. The _Journal_ had

its own candidate, Edward Hutton, who lived in Cleveland, but who spent

a great deal of time on his estate in the beautiful Ohio Valley country

near Plainfield. The _Journal_ and Edward Hutton’s followers were

striving to show every one that he was the better man for governor.

Joan listened intently and tried hard to understand. “And is the

_Journal_ Uncle John’s ‘political tool’?” she asked.

“No, he’s not interested in politics himself, but he is interested in

getting Hutton elected.” Tim was really being very decent about

explaining. “Everything good we can say about him will help.” He broke

off and started upstairs. “I’ve got to study to be ready for my job.”

Study what, Joan wondered, but she knew better than to ask. He had been

such a peach telling her so much, she mustn’t get him provoked with her.

She wandered out to the yard and called Em, the cat. Em really belonged

to the _Journal_ but she spent most of her time at the Martins’. Daddy

had named her Em—which is a very small newspaper measure—when she had

been a tiny, black kitten that you could hold in the palm of your hand.

Now, she was a big, shiny cat. She rubbed against Joan’s plaid sport

hose, entreatingly. Joan picked her up and cuddled her slippery length

on her shoulder.

What did it matter if Em shed black hairs over Joan’s white middy? Joan

never bothered much about clothes. She wore middies almost all the time

because they were easy to get into and were comfortable. She wished she

might always wear knickers, but since she couldn’t, she wore pleated

skirts as often as she could. The one she had on to-day was a real

Scotch plaid.

Joan began to hunt for four-leaf clovers in the short-cropped grass. If

she found one, she’d give it to Tim, to bring him good luck in his new

work. They could have them for “talismen” like Lloyd and Rob in _The

Little Colonel_ books. She was half afraid that Tim would not be a good

reporter; he was too—temperamental somehow.

She glanced often toward the _Journal_ windows. Mother hated having her

run over there so much—was afraid Uncle John wouldn’t like it, so she

was never to go without an excuse. But Chub often called her to the

windows to keep her posted on everything that went on.

Pretty soon, she heard his familiar, “Yoo-whoo!”

A window in the _Journal_ office opposite was pushed up, and Chub stuck

his red head out. “Come here a minute.”

Chub was just Joan’s age and her special pal. He knew almost everything

there was to know about a newspaper office. He was sympathetic with

Joan’s ambitions to newspaper fame, and was always willing to answer any

of her questions. When work was slack at the _Journal_, the two often

had games together—even playing mumble-peg on the worn, splintery floor

of the editorial office.

“I suppose you know the news?” he grinned, as she came to the window.

“About Tim? Sure thing,” she answered. “Say, Chub, do me a favor, and

think up something to call me over to the _Journal_ about, to-morrow

afternoon, will you? It’ll be Tim’s first day, and I’ll be so anxious to

know how everything goes, but I don’t dare let on to him.”

“O.K.” That was Chub’s favorite expression at the present. He got a new

one every few weeks.

“Say, Jo,” he lowered his voice. “There’s something queer going on over

here. Mystery. I’m working on it—oh, gee, there’s Cookie waving some

copy at me. I gotta go. But I’ll tell you more as soon as I really find

out something.”

The red head was withdrawn, and Joan went back to the kitchen steps,

depositing Em beside her saucer of milk.

A mystery at the _Journal_! What could it be? And would it affect Tim?

Joan rather guessed so, from Chub’s remarks. Joan loved mysteries, and

Chub knew it. Besides, if Chub had discovered it, then it was bound to

be a really good one. A real man’s mystery—nothing silly, like the

mysteries Amy tried to concoct.

In a little bit, Tim came out, in a radiant mood, Joan could tell at a

glance. “Grab your swimming suit, kid. I want to get in a last swim

before I start my job—I’ll be too busy as a cub, and don’t want to go

alone.”

It was wonderful having Tim decent to her, Joan thought as she flew to

do his bidding. Would he always be this agreeable, now that he was happy

and important over having a job? She hoped so.

After supper, Joan sat on the side steps and listened to the drone of

the humming bird that visited the honeysuckle vines, and looked up at

the stars above the _Journal_ office roof.

“To-morrow, I start my job,” she thought. She really could not have been

more interested if she herself, instead of Tim, were to report at the

_Journal_ at eight o’clock in the morning.

Soon, there was a little jingle behind her. It was Tim, putting out the

milk bottle, with its pennies and nickels, for Mother—also a signal that

Joan should come on to bed.

As she went through the dining room to the stairs, a slim tan booklet

lying there on the dining room table caught her eye. It was entitled

_Journal Style_, and was a little pamphlet on what a cub should and

should not do. She had never seen a copy of it before. She supposed they

were just given to the new men and that was why. That was what Tim had

been studying that afternoon up in his room, and this evening, too,

probably while she sat on the steps.

She opened it. “The lead of every story should answer, if possible, the

questions: Who? What? Where? When? and How?”

Why, this was just exactly what she wanted! She hooked one of the chairs

up to the table with her foot and began to read.

About an hour later, Mother’s voice called her. “Joan, aren’t you _ever_

coming up to bed?”

She left the book where she had found it, and stumbled up the stairs,

trying to remember all the hints to reporters she had read.

To-morrow. The Job! That reminded her of Chub’s mystery. What could he

mean, and when would he tell her?