_Mystery in the Night_
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."
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
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."
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.
"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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
"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!