“I’m glad you’re all here. I’m in the deuce of a mess, and I want to be helped out.”

So speaking, Max seated himself upon a porch settee and waited for expressions of sympathy and curiosity from the girls before him. When he had received them, he deigned to give a few details.

“You know, I’m to be editor of the college paper next year, and Morse has promised me all summer that when he went away for two weeks’ vacation, he’d let me take his place. Well, he went last week and I got out the Courier. It was a good number, too. I don’t suppose any of you noticed the difference?”

“I remember hearing father say the editorial was especially good,” said Catherine.

“And I heard Mrs. Tracy bewailing the fact when I went in to see her yesterday, that the paper had lost all its spice, and there wasn’t a single ridiculous item in it, not even a funny typographical mistake, so I’m sure you ought to feel complimented,” said Hannah.

247“It’s true enough, but that’s just where my pickle comes in,” said Max gloomily. “I didn’t tell any one about it, because I wanted to carry it through without any one’s knowing. But the reporter has struck, because I blue-pencilled his notes. He says no college boy is going to tamper with his work, and he’s just calmly left; and what’s worse, his brother has withdrawn an ‘ad’ which means quite a loss for Morse. I see now why Morse let so many things go by!”

“That is a pity!” said Catherine sympathetically, while the others declared themselves in stronger terms. Max looked gratified. “Now what I want of you girls is to help me gather up news and make the next paper better than any issue has been since that young puppy came on it. And I’ll get ‘ads’ enough to offset the brother’s withdrawal, and a new subscription if I have to pay for it myself. I want to leave things in at least as good shape as I found them. Jenkins will come back again as soon as Morse does. He loves to write his wild stuff, and is only willing to stop for a week, because he feels important, acting insulted. Probably thought I’d eat humble pie and raise his salary, too. Why, he had the Ortmeyer-Rawlins wedding fixed out with a scare-head THE WAY OF ALL FLESH! And started it out with a quotation from Shakespeare or somebody about Love looking with the mind, not with the eyes! The bride and all her male 248 relatives would have been down at the office with sticks. She’s a pretty girl, you know!”

“It would have been worse, if she hadn’t been,” said Alice. “What else did you cut out? It sounds like my pupils’ work. I’ll help you blue-pencil. It’s just my line.”

“The other things weren’t funny, just poor constructions and general flatness, personals that were too personal, you know, and that sort of thing. But he had a rhapsody on Dawn all worked up that he wanted to run in, this week. It began: ‘When I arise at daybreak, a thousand quotations surge into my mind!’ The fellow is daft on quoting. He sits with his feet on the desk and reads Bartlett by the hour. Well, I’m rid of him, and I’m looking for substitutes.”

“I’d like nothing better than reporting,” said Hannah. “I’ll interview the prominent strangers who come to town and get their views on things. Imagine me strutting around the hotel lobby, getting acquainted!” And Hannah assumed the swaggering manner which she fancied characteristic of reporters.

“The only prominent stranger in town is Frieda,” laughed Max. “You’ll have to get her opinion of American education or the tariff.”

“That’s easy. I know all Frieda’s opinions. If they are favorable, she gives them out plainly, and if they aren’t she keeps still, so it’s no work 249 to guess at them. I wish I could do like she does!” she added, with a sudden earnest tone in her voice.

“I’ll blue-pencil all your reportings, if you use such grammar as ‘like she does!’” said Alice sternly.

“Then I’ll get mad and resign as Jenkins did!” answered Hannah. “I guess I know the privileges of a reporter!”

“Do you think you could get the news?” asked Max. “I suppose I could manage alone, but I’d like to have the paper fuller and better than ever, and I thought if you girls would go in, we could have a lark out of it, and not tell the rest.”

“Indeed we can get news!” cried Catherine. “If you let us tell Mother and Father, they can give us news which will be perfectly legitimate, and Hannah and I have some calls to make. Frieda doesn’t want to go, and Alice wasn’t here when these girls called. They are some of the gossippy kind, and we’ll let them talk and report as much as seems fair. And the Three B’s meet here this week, and we can make a good society column thing of that.”

“Why not have Algernon give you library notes?” suggested Alice.

“He does, always, but he would be glad to do something extra, I’m sure,” said Max. “I don’t know but it would be a good plan to take him in on this. He’s in a position to gather news easily.”

250“I don’t see how I can help,” said Frieda, sadly.

“If you’ll tell me something interesting about German schools,” said Alice, “I’ll write it up, and that will go in as our contribution. You could make room for it, couldn’t you, Mr. Editor?”

“Indeed, I could. I’d be mighty glad to get it. It would be better than filling up with poetry, the way they often do. By the way, I did cut out a poem of the reporter’s. I forgot all about that. Wonder where it is,” and he began searching in his pockets.

“That’s what made him angry,” cried Catherine. “Anybody would be angry at that. Was it a very bad poem?”

“I can’t remember much of it. Only it had a refrain every two inches of ‘My woe! My woe!’

was the way it began, and then he went straight ahead to try to do that very thing. Here! I’ve got a scrap of it.

The audience shouted with laughter, but Catherine looked sympathetic.

“Poor boy!” she said. “He probably loved his quotations and his poetry, and had looked forward to Mr. Morse’s being away to have a beautiful time 251 with the paper. I don’t blame him for resigning and eating his heart out. Not a poem of mine will I send you, Mr. Penfield, or any of your hard-hearted staff. I’ll confine myself to finding out what’s happening in Winsted, and leave the head-lines to your own inventive genius.”

Two days later, the editorial staff of the Courier had an impromptu meeting in the library. Max had come in to ask Algernon for notes, and Catherine and Hannah were waiting for Frieda and Alice to join them to go to a tea at Dot’s.

“We’ve called on the biggest gossips we could find,” called Hannah cheerfully, as Max came in, “and I’ve got at least ten items.” She showed a note-book which slipped inside her card-case.

“She was dreadful!” said Catherine. “She would stop and make notes before we had got a block away from the house, for fear she would forget, and asked questions that made me hold my breath.”

“Well,” Hannah defended herself. “I wanted details. I don’t want just little bare sentences. And Catherine was just as bad. She took such an interest in the new people who had moved in next door to the Galleghers’, that I know the Gallegher girls were almost scandalized.”

Max ran his eye over Hannah’s list of news items approvingly. “That’s a fine start. Can’t you do some more calls?”

Catherine shook her head. “No, we don’t know 252 any more of the very gossippy kind, but we are going to a tea at Dot’s, and we’ll make a society note of that. How are the editorials coming?”

Max made a wry face. “I declare, I’m pretty nearly stumped. At college there always seemed to be a lot of vital matters to discuss. But here there isn’t anything after a little spiel on the crops and a paragraph on politics. I don’t dare go in heavy there, for I’m not sure just what Morse’s position is, and don’t want to commit him. I can’t think of any public enterprise to work up, or any nuisance to be suppressed.”

“I wish you’d suppress mosquitoes and flies,” said Hannah, brushing away one of the latter insects, and petting a swollen place on her wrist.

“Why not write an editorial on it?” suggested Catherine. “You can give him material to read, can’t you, Algernon?”

Algernon came over to the corner where the three were talking in tones fitting a library.

“What’s that? O, indeed, yes,” and the boy’s face lightened with pleasure as he found some one really desiring information of a worthy nature. “I’ll get you something right away. There was an article in a last month’s magazine.”

“I could do elegant head-lines,” said Max:

253As Algernon brought the magazine and a book, Alice and Frieda arrived in their party raiment, and, bidding the boys good-by, the four girls drifted out and down the street looking like pretty butterflies.

Max lingered for a few minutes’ chat with Algernon about the paper, telling him some of his difficulties and desires. Algernon’s store of information proved of value here, too, and Max accepted gratefully a hint or two about the mechanical part of the work.

“I say, Swinburne,” he said suddenly, as he got up to go, taking fly and mosquito literature with him, “couldn’t you get off and run up to Madison for a few days this fall? I’d like to show you around and have you meet some of the fellows. If I were you, I’d try to pass off a few subjects. You could, without half trying, and perhaps you’d be able to get up and take your degree some time.”

“Thanks,” said Algernon, “I’ll think about it,” and Max went whistling away; but Algernon, as he selected a fairy tale for the little Hamilton girl, felt his heart light and his courage high. “I’ll get to college yet, as true as I’m alive,” he said aloud, and the little Hamilton girl looked up at him. “What did you say?” she asked. “I don’t want true stories, but fairy ones.”