_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.