Joan of the Journal

by Helen Diehl Olds

  CHAPTER XVII

  TIM MAKES THE FRONT PAGE

  From the _Journal’s_ point of view, it was a wonderful fire. It was onlya ramshackle, vacant building that was burning, but it was right in theheart of the downtown section of Plainfield. When Joan and Amy reachedthe corner, they had to step over solid rounds of hose, stretched tautacross the street. The red and yellow street cars were stalled forblocks, and down the street was the blazing, leaping fire.

  The two girls pushed their way through the throng until they were at theedge of the crowd, right before the burning building. The fire engineswere snorting at the curb. Firemen in their black rubber coats and hatswere shouting orders. The friendly traffic policeman from the _Journal_corner had left his post and was busy waving his white-gloved handsabout, to keep the crowds back within a certain distance of the fire.

  Joan counted the engines and squeezed Amy’s hand. “All the companies intown are here.”

  The girls stood watching the fire for some time. The heat rushed out atthem. The crackle and roar sounded like the ocean—or the way Joanimagined the ocean would sound. The bright flames flung flickering,eerie shadows over drab Main Street. Now, the firemen must be getting itunder control, for great gobs of black smoke were oozing out of thebuilding. The smoke smarted their eyes and the smell of the fire filledtheir nostrils. They saw Lefty up in a window of a building across thestreet, taking pictures.

  Joan had spotted Tim now. He was standing in the gutter, where the sprayfrom the hose occasionally spattered him with a few stray drops. He hadhis pad and yellow pencil in his hand and was trying to ask questions ofa fireman standing in the fire engine, unwinding the hose, too busy todo more than motion Tim to go away. Wasn’t it a good thing he had beento the recent West fire and knew how to write this one up?

  “Ed Hutton sure is in luck to have the old place go up in smoke,” Joanheard a man who was pressing against her in the mob, say to hiscompanion. “I guess the place is plastered with insurance. He wasintending to build here, anyway.”

  Edward Hutton was the _Journal’s_ candidate for governor. Did the manmean that he was the owner of the building? She wondered whether Timknew that. She tried to signal to him that she had found out something,but he was jamming his pad and pencil into his coat pocket with adisgusted thrust and was leaping over the hose to back out of the crowd.

  “Let’s go.” Amy pulled her arm. “A fire isn’t really exciting when it’sjust an empty building. Of course, people lived upstairs, but they’reall out, some one said. Anyway, poor people in flats aren’tinteresting.”

  “When something happens to a poor person, it’s just as much news asthough it happened to a rich person. In fact, I think poor people aremore interesting,” Joan said, heatedly. “I’m going to ask one of thefiremen whether the people did get out all right or not.”

  “Jo, I’m going home, if you’re going to start up conversations withstrange men that you haven’t been properly introduced to.” Amy brokeaway. “Besides, there’s nothing to see, and the smoke makes my eyes red.I know I look a sight.”

  “All right, you can go,” Joan said. “I’m going to stick around until theall-out alarm is sounded.”

  Then she thought of the policeman. No harm to ask him. It was always allright to ask a policeman anything. The crowd had thinned a bit, most ofthe onlookers feeling like Amy that the fire wasn’t much. A report wasbuzzed around that the fire was out.

  “What is it, sister?” asked the policeman, when Joan tugged at hissleeve. He was a nice Irish policeman, and he talked to her out of oneside of his mouth, while he waved his billy club, and shouted orders atthe crowd out of the other side of his mouth.

  “Officer,” Joan felt very small as she looked up at him, for her headreached only to his middle button, “is that building owned by Mr.Hutton?”

  “It is that,” he answered.

  “And did people live in the second floor?” she raised her voice andstood on tiptoe.

  “They did that. But what did you want to know for?”

  “I have to get all the details,” Joan informed him, earnestly. “I’mcovering the story for the _Journal_.”

  “Is that right?” smiled the officer. “Well, I thought you was just akid, but you never can tell these days with short hair and shingledskirts. You must be new at the job, though.”

  Why, he thought she was grown up! It was because of the tan sweatercostume. Perhaps it would be just as well not to undeceive him just yet.“I am rather new,” she admitted. That was true enough. “Can’t you helpme get details?”

  “I don’t know the folk’s names, myself, but why don’t you ask Joe Kinneythere—he’s a brand-new fireman. It’s his first fire, too. So he’llprobably talk. Most of the older firemen get like us policefellows—steer clear of reporters.”

  “Oh, thank you so much.” Joan gave him a beaming smile, and followed JoeKinney as he came out of the burning building and went back to the fireengine. She hoped he wouldn’t talk very fast because she had no pad orpencil and would have to keep all the facts in her mind.

  “Mr. Kinney!” Surely it was all right to call a fireman “Mister.” “I’mfrom the _Journal_. Can you tell me about the fire?”

  The man merely looked at her, blinked his eyes, and then fell backagainst the fire engine, his rubber helmet falling off and revealingwavy, red hair.

  Joan had expected him to be impressed with the fact that he was about tobe interviewed by a young girl reporter, but she did not expect him tofall completely over.

  “Gosh, Kinney’s gone out like a light,” yelled another fireman.“Overcome by smoke, that’s all.” He slipped his arm under the other’sshoulder and drew him up to a sitting position against the step of thefire engine at the curb. “Stand back, folks. Give him air. Somebody getthe first aid kit.”

  Joan clung to the edge of the crowd that the officer was shoving backagain. One fireman rushed up with a wet cloth and splashed Kinney’sface. Another one held a small bottle up to his nose. After a bit,Kinney opened his eyes. He got up to his feet. “There’s somethingmoaning up there on a bed on the second floor,” Joan heard him whisper.“I’m going back.”

  “Poor Joe thinks he’s going to be a hero right off the bat,” laughed thefireman with the bottle. He pulled at Kinney’s arm. “There ain’t a soulup there, Joe. ’Twas Mrs. Flattery, herself, that sent in the alarm andshe told us everybody was out of the building. She said her kid wasmonkeying with the electric wiring.”

  But Fireman Kinney was not to be dissuaded.

  He stumbled on toward the smoking building and went inside, while theother firemen shook their heads. “Plum craziness,” one said. “But I’llgo along,” and he followed.

  Joan was almost hurled off her feet by the mob that was eagerly watchingfor Kinney’s return. They could see him as he passed at a window, hishair a brilliant spot through the blackness of the smoke. Then, a littlelater, he appeared at the window for another moment, and he was carryingsomething in his arms. The crowd gave a gasp.

  The firemen rushed to the building to greet Kinney and to take hisburden from him—it was a big, black dog, slightly overcome by the smoke.As soon as the dog was out in the open air, he pricked up his long ears,thrust out his red tongue and looked around at the people.

  A boy darted out from the crowd, and threw himself upon the dog. “It’sBlue,” he blurted. “My very own Blue!” And the dog covered him withlicks from his tongue.

  “The Flattery kid’s dog,” murmured the crowd, watching the scene.

  Then, there sounded, “Dong! Dong!” That meant “Fire’s out.”

  Goodness, she’d have to hurry back to the _Journal_ to tell the detailsshe’d gathered to Tim, for Joan knew that the “dead-line” at the_Journal_ was one o’clock. After that, it was too late for stories toget into the paper.

  She arrived at the _Journal_ office in time to hear Mr. Nixon yell outinto the composing room, “Fix a streamer for the Main Street fire story,Tom.” That meant that Tim’s story
was going to have a headline allacross the front page in big letters.

  Tim was trying not to be excited. He listened respectfully while Joantold her story. “Only the people right up close, who stayed on, knewabout the rescue. It’ll be a scoop,” she finished up.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he answered carelessly. “Still, anything about dogsalways goes big. I got all the other details, of course. I’m glad yougot names, though. I think I can make a good story about Kinney’sbravery at his first fire.”

  “That’s what I thought, too,” agreed his sister.

  “You better beat it home to lunch,” Tim ordered Joan. “Tell Mother I’vegot a dead-line to make; that I’ll grab something later on.”

  Joan ate her own lunch in a hurry, and swished through the dish-washing,but even so, by the time she reached the _Journal_ office again, it wasalmost time for the paper to be off the press. They had speeded upthings to get out early with the fire story.

  Tim was humming to himself as he hunted through the files for the TenYears Ago To-Day column. “What do you think?” he whispered to Joan, whenshe came in. “Nixon said that my story was fine.”

  Gertie from the front office came through the composing room door,giggling as usual. “I declare,” she told Mack, “that Dummy’s thecreepiest thing I ever saw. I just met him snooping around like a cat.”

  Miss Betty and Tim expostulated, but Mack, queerly enough, chimed inwith Gertie’s tale. “I always have thought he was an impostor, somehow.”Joan was surprised that he said that much.

  “We’ve always thought he was a spy,” said Chub, before Joan could stophim.

  “A spy,” echoed Gertie. “Why should he spy on us?”

  “Berry. Elections,” muttered Tim. Had he heard them talking or did hejust guess it, Joan wondered. “Trying to get Mr. Hutton in bad with thepublic.”

  “I don’t believe it. You’re too romantic, Tim,” laughed Miss Betty.“Why, Mack, what are you looking so funny for?”

  Mack ran his finger around the back of his collar. “It’s this blamedheat. I never saw an office with such rotten ventilation.”

  But Joan thought it was because Miss Betty had told Tim he was“romantic.” Or was it because he was afraid she’d give it away that he,too, thought Dummy a spy? Then she saw through the window, a stream ofnewsboys going by, with papers under their arms.

  “The paper’s out,” she shouted.

  “Sure is.” Mr. Nixon came in from the composing room, where he had beenwrestling with the job of “putting the paper to bed.” He had a smile onhis face. “How does your brain child look to you in black and white,Tim?”

  He held out a paper, with the headline, “HUTTON BLDG. ON MAIN STREETBURNS.”

  Joan hung over the curve of Tim’s arm, despite jabs from his elbow, andtogether they read the story. All through the first paragraph, or“lead,” that told the “Who, where, what, when, and why,” of the story,as every lead should, on through Tim’s splendid description of the fire,and the fireman’s brave rescue of the dog, to the jubilant reunion ofthe boy and dog, which Tim had written in his best style.

  “That dog stuff was good,” Cookie said. “The story wouldn’t have beenanything without that part. You were pretty smart to get that, Martin.”

  Joan glowed as she bent over the story. The very last sentence puzzledher. “What does that mean, Tim?” She put her finger on, “The police feelthat the circumstances surrounding the cause of the fire are mostsuspicious and have started an investigation.”

  “Gosh, I never wrote that!” Tim’s face got white. “I ended my storyright here with, ‘The building is owned by Edward Hutton of Cleveland,Ohio, who is to be a candidate in the election for governor this fall.The loss is unestimated at present, but it is stated that it was coveredby insurance.’”

  “Maybe it was printer’s pi,” suggested Joan.

  Chub hooted. “Pi’s when the type’s upset, silly. This is a mistake.”

  Mr. Nixon had grabbed the paper. “I read proof on this myself, and Iswear that wasn’t there—but still— Why, this is terrible, casting suchreflections at Mr. Hutton. Why couldn’t you be careful, Martin? You musthave written it, and I let it slip.”

  “But I didn’t write it,” protested Tim.

  “Don’t you see,” Chub was explaining the situation in an aside to Joan,“that’s an awful thing to say about a man, especially one running forgovernor. It means he set the building on fire to get rid of it, andthat’s against the law.”

  “But he didn’t,” reasoned Joan. “The fireman himself said it wasdefective wiring, just what Tim said in the beginning of the story.”

  “It couldn’t be from another story, I tell you,” Mr. Nixon was shoutingat Tim, “because that’s the only fire story we had in the paper to-day.”

  Suddenly Joan remembered that Mr. Johnson had said to come to him thenext time anything suspicious happened.

  She dashed across the room to the telephone booth and dived into thesmoke-choked, dim little place, for she did not bother to snap on theswinging light. She lifted the receiver and called Mr. Johnson’s number.She had memorized it for just such an emergency.

  “Mistah Johnson not heah,” the voice of a colored maid told her. “He’sgone to Cincinnati foah a few days.”

  Then she’d have to work alone. The first thing to do was to get hold ofTim’s copy and see whether that final paragraph was there—perhaps theprinter had picked it up from some other story—perhaps something leftover from the day before. She wasn’t sure, but it might have happened,somehow.

  When she came out of the phone booth, Mr. Nixon was still talking in hisloudest tones. “We’ve had just about enough of this sort of thing goingon here. Uncle or no uncle, this is too much!”

  Tim was being fired! Joan had never seen any one get fired before, andhad never dreamed it was ever done publicly and so loud as this. PoorTim! There wouldn’t be any college for him now, if he lost the job.Summer jobs were scarce in Plainfield. She had to help him!

  “All right, I’ll quit,” Tim muttered. “No sense to work for a paper thatlets such things happen. I tell you I never wrote that paragraph.Whether I can prove it or not, I never did!”

  Joan wanted to rush right after him as he strode out of the office, butshe must work on the mystery to solve it and save him. She couldn’t losea minute. If Dummy were a spy, she was going to find out right now andmake things right for Tim. Perhaps she could prove it before Tim gothome.

  No need to ask Dummy anything. She wouldn’t even nod to him, but just goright to the big hook where the copy was. The usual rumble and clattercame from the pressroom, but here the linotype men had all gone home,and there was no one except Dummy over there in the corner. With fingersthat trembled, Joan flipped the pages until she came to the fire story,with Tim’s name up in the left-hand corner. It was a long story, and Timhad pasted the sheets together in one long strip.

  The paragraph was there, just as it had appeared in the paper. Could itbe that the Dummy had borrowed some one’s typewriter and written it? Washe really a spy? He could so easily take the story off the hook, with noone questioning it, add that extra paragraph and get the _Journal’s_candidate in bad, which was more his job than proofreading, she wassure.

  She’d take the copy right to Mr. Nixon and tell him that no one wouldhave dared change it but Dummy.

  As she was hurrying toward the swinging door, she heard a voice. “Oh,Miss Joan!” It was a voice she had never heard before—a smooth,cultured, middle-aged, masculine voice. “I want to talk to you.”

  Joan turned and stared. There was not a soul in that whole vast placebut Dummy over in his corner.