Helen was stunned for the moment. In her chance to make good in high school dramatics she had clumsily backed into the stand and upset it, breaking the vase. Tears welled into her eyes and her lips trembled. The senior was staring at her, too surprised to talk.

The laughter continued, and Helen seized the only chance for escape.

Could she make it appear that the accident was a part of the play, a deliberate bit of comedy?

"Smile," she whispered to the senior. "We can make it look like a part of the play. Follow my cue." He nodded slightly to show that he understood.

The laughter subsided enough for them to continue their lines and Helen managed to smile. She hoped it wouldn't look too forced.

"Look what you made me do," she said, pointing at the wreckage of the vase.

"Sorry," smiled the senior. "I'm just that way about you."

Then they swung back into the lines of the play and three minutes later Helen was again in the wings.

Miss Weeks was waiting for her and Helen expected a sharp criticism.

"Supreme comedy," congratulated the dramatic instructor. "How did you happen to think of that?"

"But I didn't think of it," protested Helen. "It was an accident. I was scared to death."

Miss Weeks stared at her hard.

"Well," she commented, "you certainly carried it off splendidly. It was the best comedy touch of the show."

The third act went on and then "The Spell of the Image" was over. The curtain came down on the final curtain call. The orchestra blared as the audience left the hall while parents and friends trooped onto the stage to congratulate the members of the cast.

Helen suddenly felt very tired and there was a mist in her eyes, but she brightened visibly when her mother and Tom, followed by the Stevens, pushed through the crowd. She listened eagerly to their praises and to Tom's whole-hearted exclamations over her beauty and charm.

Then the lights of the stage dimmed. She had had her hour as an actress; she knew she had acquitted herself well. The smell of grease, paint and powder faded and she was a newspaperwoman again--the editor of the _Herald_.

CHAPTER XI _New Plans_

With the end of the school year Tom and Helen were able to give their complete time and energies to the _Herald_. When Monday, the first of June arrived, they were working on their fourth issue of the _Herald_ and Helen had written a number of stories on the last week's activities at school, the graduation exercises, the junior-senior dinner and the senior cla.s.s play. She praised Miss Weeks highly for her work with the cla.s.s play and lauded the seniors for their fine acting. Although urged that she say something about her own part, Helen steadfastly refused and her brother finally gave up in disgust and delved in to the ledger for on his shoulders fell the task of making out the monthly bills and handling all of the business details of the paper.

When Tom had completed his bookkeeping he turned to his sister.

"Helen," he began, "we're not making enough."

"But, Tom," she protested, "the paper is carrying more advertising than when Dad ran it."

"Yes, but our expenses are high," said Tom. "We've got to look ahead all the time. Dad will have used all of the money he took with him in a little less than six months. After that it will be up to us to have the cash in the bank. Right now we've just a little under a hundred dollars in the bank. Current bills will take more than that, and our own living expenses, that is for mother and we two, will run at least $100 a month.

With our total income from the paper only slightly more than $200 a month on the basis of the present amount of advertising, you see we're not going to be able to save much toward helping Dad."

"Then we'll have to find ways of increasing our volume of business," said Helen.

"That won't be easy to do in a town this size," replied Tom, "and I won't go out and beg for advertising."

"No one is going to ask you to," said Helen. "We'll make the _Herald_ such a bright, outstanding paper that all of the business men will want to advertise."

"We'll do the best we can," agreed Tom.

"Then let's start right now by putting in a farm page," suggested Helen.

"But there won't be many farm sales from now on," argued Tom.

"No," conceded his sister, "but there is haying, threshing and then corn picking and all of the stores have supplies to sell to the farmers."

"I believe you're right. If you'll do the collecting this afternoon, I'll go down to Gladbrook and see if we can get the cooperation of the county agent. Lots of the townships near here have farm bureaus and I'll get the names of all of their leaders and we'll write and tell them what we plan to do."

After lunch Tom teased the family flivver into motion and set out for Gladbrook while Helen took the sheaf of bills and started the rounds of the business houses. She had no trouble getting her money from all of the regular advertisers and in every store in which she stopped she took care to ask the owner about news of the store and of his family. She noticed that it flattered each one and she resolved to call on them at least once a week.

Tom returned from Gladbrook late in the afternoon. He was enthusiastic over the success of his talk with the county agent.

"He's a fine chap," Tom explained. "Had a course in agricultural journalism in college and knows news and how to write it. The Gladbrook papers, the _News_ and the _Times_, don't come up in this section of the county and he'll be only too glad to send us a column each week."

"When will he start?"

"Next week will be the first one. He'll mail his column every Tuesday evening and we'll have it on the Wednesday morning mail. Now, here's even better news. I went to several of the department stores at Gladbrook and told them we were going to put out a real farm page. They're actually anxious to buy s.p.a.ce and by driving down there once a week I can get two or three good ads."

"How will the local merchants feel?" asked Helen.

"They won't object," replied Tom, "for I was careful to stress that I would only accept copy which would not conflict with that used by our local stores."

"That was a wise thing to do," Helen said. "We can't afford to antagonize our local advertisers. I made the rounds and collected all of the regular accounts. There's only about eighteen dollars outstanding on this month's bills and I'll get all but about five dollars of that before the week is over."

"Want to go to Cranston Friday or Sat.u.r.day?" asked Tom.

"I surely do," Helen replied. "But what for, Tom, and can we afford it?"

"One of us will have to make the trip," her brother said. "Putting on this farm page means we'll have to print two more pages at home, six altogether, and will need only two pages of ready-print a week from the World Printing Company. We'll go down and talk with their manager at Cranston and select the features we want for the two pages they will continue to print for us."

"Our most important features in the ready-print now are the comics, the serial story and the fashion news for women," said Helen.

"Then we'll have one page of comics," said Tom, "and fill the other page with features of special interest to our women readers."

The next three days found the young Blairs so busy getting out the current edition of the paper that they had little time to talk about their plans.

They had decided to go to Cranston Friday but when Helen found that there were special rates for Sat.u.r.day, they postponed the trip one day. When the Friday morning mail arrived, Helen was glad they had changed their plans. While sorting the handful of letters, most of them circulars destined for the wastepaper basket, she came upon the letter she had been looking forward to for days. The words in the upper left hand corner thrilled her. It was from the Cranston bureau of the a.s.sociated Press.

With fingers that trembled slightly, she tore it open. Would she get the job as Rolfe correspondent? A green slip dropped out of the envelope and Tom, who had come in from the composing room, reached down and picked it up.

"Ten dollars!" he whistled.

"What's that?" demanded Helen, incredulously.