Joan of the Journal

by Helen Diehl Olds

  CHAPTER VI

  TIM’S SECOND WARNING

  Dummy with Tebbets of the _Star_! What could that mean, Joan wondered.“Let’s peep over,” she whispered to Chub. “Maybe we’ll get some clews.”

  Noiselessly, they crept to the edge of the elevation, fearful of beingseen if they stood upright. Stretched out on the ground, clutching theroots of clumps of weeds, they peered over the edge.

  There was Dummy, treading with stealthy steps along the path below, andjust a few paces ahead of him, just about to disappear into a bushythicket, was the broad back of the city editor of the _Star_. Why shouldthe _Star_ editor and Dummy go for a stroll way up here together unlessto talk over some guilty secret? It was clear now to Joan that Dummy wasa spy, hired by Tebbets. No true member of the _Journal_ family wouldthink of being friends with that awful Tebbets of the rival paper. Thetwo newspapers were often forced to work together, and the two staffswere friendly enough, but just at this time, they were at strainedrelations over the coming election.

  “Tebbets must know the deaf and dumb language.” Joan hardly knew what tothink.

  “Sure!” Chub snorted. “It’s not so hard. How else could he hire Dummy todo his dirty work? He couldn’t write everything he wanted to tellhim—too dangerous. Tebbets didn’t want the picnic people to see himtalking sign language, so they came up here.”

  “Sh! Some one might hear.” But there was no one at all in sight now andno sound except for the swaying of the trees and the drowsy hum ofunseen insects. “I wish Mr. Johnson hadn’t had to hurry off toCincinnati. You know I promised him not to jump to conclusions, so wecan’t do anything.”

  “No, I guess not,” agreed the office boy. “Come on, let’s get backbefore all the food’s eaten.”

  Just like a boy, always thinking of food—even in the midst of a mystery.However, the exercise of the game and the swim had given Joan a ravenousappetite, too, so she raced Chub down the steep cliff, stones clatteringloose after them until it sounded in that quiet place as thoughmountains were falling.

  When they reached the picnic table, Miss Betty was signaling that shewas saving places for them next to her own and Tim’s. The _Star_ staffhad just left, she said, for they had to get back to their work.

  “Oh, boy, fried chicken!” Chub whistled as he viewed the table.

  It was a wonderful spread, every one declared. Besides the friedchicken, there was cold baked ham, golden mounds of potato salad, slicedtomatoes, pickles, olives, and towering plates of bread and buttersandwiches.

  During the meal, Betty motioned across the table to Mr. Nixon. “Listento this, will you, chief?” She unfolded a page of familiar yellow copypaper, and cleared her throat preparing to read something aloud. Everyone became quiet and listened.

  “This is our cub reporter’s write-up of the game this afternoon,” shesaid and began to read: “‘Lefty Dale did a Dick Merriweather stunt thisafternoon, when in the ninth inning in the game between the _Journal_and the _Star_, he poled a circuit clout _à la_ Babe Ruth, with thebases loaded to bring his team from behind with two outs in the lastframe.’”

  The account went on in Tim’s best baseball manner and told of the game,inning by inning, up to the victorious end.

  “Why, that’s good, Martin!” the editor said when Miss Betty had finishedreading. “Wish I could publish it as it is, but the general readingpublic of Plainfield doesn’t want to read about our triumphing over ourrivals with all the gory details. Since we aim to give them what theywant, just a mere note of the picnic and game score will have tosuffice. But your write-up is fine.”

  Tim was eating and grinning all at the same time. Mack was scowling athis forkful of salad. Was he afraid that Tim would steal his job fromhim? Or—was it that he was provoked that Miss Betty was promoting thecub reporter this way? Joan had tried to decide whether Miss Bettywasn’t beginning to like Tim better than she did Mack. But the societyeditor treated them both as two brothers whom she expected to be pals.Joan was disappointed that the office romance wasn’t blossoming faster.

  “That’s a big compliment the editor’s giving Tim,” Joan whispered toChub, now. He nodded over a cold drumstick in reply.

  Talk rattled on. Jokes and clever banter were battered about the table,flung from one to another, like a baseball. The head pressman’s threelittle boys, up at the other end of the table, were almost choking withthe effort of trying to eat and giggle at the same time. The only onewho was apparently taking no part in the fun was Dummy. He was sittingon the other side of the table, with the editor’s family and was feedinglittle Ruthie something out of a bowl. Zweiback and milk was her supper,but she was contented with it.

  “Ice cream and cake coming. Save room!” one of the refreshment committeecautioned Chub. He blushed as every one laughed.

  Poor Dummy. He was missing all the jibes, but he seemed to be enjoyinghimself anyway. Was he only acting a part in being nice to littleRuthie? Wouldn’t he be surprised if he knew that they had seen him therewith Mr. Tebbets, and that they knew his wicked secret? Now he wasplaying a silent game of peekaboo with the baby. Silently, Dummy wouldremove wrinkled hands from his dull blue eyes and little Ruthie wouldbubble over with baby chuckles.

  “I don’t see,” Joan mused to herself, as she ate another olive, “how aman can seem so nice and make a baby like him like that and still besuch a deep-dyed villain.”

  * * * * *

  Every one was tired the next day, for the _Journal_ family had lingeredat the picnic woods to make the trip home by moonlight. Perhaps that waswhy a mistake occurred the very next afternoon. It was in a story Timhad written, too. He was not in the office when the error wasdiscovered. Mr. Nixon had sent him up to the library to get a list ofnew books, in response to a request from Miss Bird, the librarian.

  Chub told Joan about the mistake. “Old Nix’s on his ear.” He seemed asworried as though it were his own brother. “There’s another mistake inone of Tim’s stories. That write-up about the patronesses of the flowershow the Women’s Club gives every year for the benefit of the hospital.Old Mrs. McNulty’s name was left off the list.”

  “But is that anything so terrible?” Joan asked. Oh, dear, anothermistake!

  “Well, you see, the old lady is Mr. Hutton’s mother-in-law, you know,”he explained. “She likes publicity, too, even though she pretends notto. She called the chief up and gave him a good raking over, I guess.The whole office was pretty blue. Seems she gives lavishly to thingsshe’s interested in and is sore as a boil about her name being left off.Besides, the paper wants to stand in good with her.”

  “Do you think Dummy—?” Joan began.

  “Sure thing!” nodded the office boy. “They probably doped it up at thepicnic. But I don’t know how we can prove that Dummy left that name off.It wasn’t on the copy, for Nixon compared that first thing.”

  Joan’s head was swimming as she waited in the _Journal_ office for Timto return. When he came in, he was called to the editor’s desk rightoff, and every one heard Mr. Nixon confronting him with the mistake.

  The office was silent, waiting for Tim’s reply.

  “Guess I am guilty this time,” he acknowledged. “I realized afterwardsthat I had left some names off. I took the notes in a hurry, and filledone piece of paper, and took the last two or three names of the list onanother piece, and then I forgot that second page.”

  He went for his notes on the big hook by his desk. Every one at the_Journal_ was required to keep all notes one week, for alibis. EverySaturday, the stuff on the hooks was thrown out. Tim thumbed through thepapers on the hook—there were a great many, for this was Saturday, butthe one he was looking for was near the top. He found the scrawled listand discovered that two names besides Mrs. McNulty’s were written on anextra bit of paper and had been left out of the printed list.

  “Well, I guess it’s not serious, for no one complained but Mrs. McNulty.Give her a ring and make peace with her.” The editor looked relieved
,then provoked the very next minute. “But, Martin, really, as a reporter,I must say you’re a better ball player. Why can’t you be accurate?You’ve shown you can write. Now, take that baseball write-up yesterday.That was dandy.”

  “That was fun,” Tim showed his relief at being let off. “Writing thisother junk isn’t.”

  “That’s the regular cub assignment,” snapped the editor, turning back tohis work. “Remember now, second warning, no more mistakes.”

  “What’s all this about a mistake?” It was Uncle John hurrying out fromhis sanctum sanctorum.

  So he had to be told. “The boy’s had the grace to admit that he made itthis time,” finished up Mr. Nixon. He sounded as though he stillbelieved that Tim had made the first mistake, too—the one about thedeserted children.

  “Perhaps he will learn more from the mistake than they themselves areworth,” Uncle John said. “But be careful, Tim.”

  Be careful! He would have to be now, Joan realized. She was more puzzledthan ever. Even if Tim had made this mistake, she knew she hadn’twritten Mr. Johnson’s name in that other story. She’d have to stickaround the office even more than ever now to be ready to help Tim. Itwas too bad that the only time he had really let her help, that terriblemistake had had to happen. She supposed he was afraid to trust heragain. Well, she’d hang around anyway to be on hand if he did want her.

  “Say, I’m in an awful rush,” Tim said one afternoon. He was always in arush, it seemed. “Can you look up the stuff for the Ten Years Agocolumn?”

  It was her chance, the first really big thing he had asked her to dosince he allowed her to type that story about the deserted children. Ofcourse, he had let her do little things, like looking up telephonenumbers and checking initials.

  She’d be extra careful, she resolved, as she picked up Em, who wascurled up for a nap on the coverless dictionary. Then she lifted off thedictionary and tugged at the heavy, bound file.

  Every day the _Journal_ carried a few items culled from these files. Itwas part of Tim’s work to pick out those which he thought would interestthe present readers of the _Journal_, and to copy them off verbatim. Thebeginning of this column was always the same—the type was always leftset up in the forms. It said, “The following article was printed in theissue of the _Plainfield Evening Journal_ for June—19—” and then camethe date, ten years ago. Joan loved the old files; she liked to poreover the yellow pages and laugh at the queer fashions that were in voguein the fifteen and twenty years ago numbers—long skirts that trailed onthe ground, veils and funny hats. Why, Mother had a queer old silkblouse up in the attic, almost like that picture.

  She learned to pick out items about prominent men—men who had not beenso prominent ten years ago. Some of the issues were as interesting asstories, real stories, not just news ones. Then she’d type them off, sovery carefully.

  “Those old files are full of good stories,” Betty told her. “Don’t youknow that half of the authors nowadays get their plots from newspaperclippings?”

  “Do they?” Joan was interested.

  “Sure, that’s why they sound as though they couldn’t possibly havehappened,” laughed Tim. “Because they actually did.”

  Well, wasn’t their mystery as impossible-sounding as any made up one?All the while she was watching Dummy every possible chance. She had comeupon him suddenly several times “out back” and he had scurried out ofthe way, like a cat caught in the cream. She and Chub spent every minutethey could “sleuthing the office” as he called it. “Watch everything!That’s the only way,” he told her.

  So Joan watched, and discovered that Betty didn’t go out to lunch withMack any more, but she and Tim went out at the same time and oftenlunched together at a white-tiled place, with copper bowls of scarletapples and golden oranges in the window. Mother thought it was silly ofhim to spend his salary on lunches when he lived right next door to hisjob, and said so.

  Of course Miss Betty couldn’t help but like Tim when he tried to benice, and he did try. He would leave foolish notes addressed to “BettyBarefacts” on Miss Betty’s desk. Joan discovered one on the societyeditor’s hook when she was destroying her notes for her. It read:

  Dear Miss Barefacts,

  I am a young man with passes to the stock company. Is it proper to ask a girl to go to a show on passes? T. M.

  Mack didn’t tease so much any more, either. He seemed provoked thatBetty was preferring Tim. Once when Tim was busy at his machine, andMack was going out to lunch, his hat punched down over his eyes, Joanasked him timidly, “Mack, may I use your machine to copy this Ten YearsAgo To-Day?”

  He seemed about to give a nod of assent, when Joan added, coaxingly,“Your typewriter is better than Tim’s. His commas have no heads.”

  Instantly the sport editor’s face changed. “You keep out of here.” Hejammed the cracked, black canvas cover down over his machine, and strodeout of the office, muttering what he thought about a newspaper in a jaytown like this that let a kid stick around every minute!

  Joan was bewildered, until she looked across the office now and sawBetty and Tim laughing together over some letter she had received forthe Advice to the Lovelorn column. Then she thought she understood. Mackwas peeved because Betty liked Tim—and about the lunches and notes andshows. But why shouldn’t she prefer big, broad-shouldered, dark-hairedTim to that silly, pink-mustached sport editor, even though Tim was onlyseventeen? And, of course, Mack wasn’t going to treat his rival’s sisternicely.

  Things seemed rather at a standstill. To be sure, Mr. Johnson stopped inat the office about every other day, when he was in town, and he alwaysasked after the mystery. He was interested in learning that Dummy wasseen in the woods with Mr. Tebbets, but didn’t seem to think that itproved anything. Almost every time Mr. Johnston came he had a box in hishand.

  “It’s typewriter supplies,” he would say as he handed it to Joan, with agrin upon his bulldog features.

  Expecting to find a new ribbon for the machine, she would open it alwaysto find that it was candy.

  “Aren’t you a typewriter?” he would explain, amused at his own joke. Hewas always surprised to realize that she could type.

  Joan would pass the candy all around, to the girls in the front office,to the business staff and to the men out back. Dummy always wrote apolite “Thank you” on his pad, when he took a piece, and always gave hera smile.

  Poor old Dummy, he might seem innocent enough, as Mr. Johnson appearedto believe, but it was he, Joan was sure, who had changed the name andaddress on the story she had typed for Tim his second day at the_Journal_ and had brought about all the trouble. For Tim was still ontrial.

  Tim’s probation brought one good result, however. He was working harderthan ever and turning in more and better copy, and at the end of theweek he got his first real assignment.