The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted Part 29

"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 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."

"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!'

'I cannot tell the world 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 sc.r.a.p of it.

'Things are seldom what they seem, Nor is Life what its livers dream, My woe, my woe!'"

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 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 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, brus.h.i.+ng 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:

"KEROSENE THE KONQUEROR!

MOSQUITOES Ma.s.sACRED!

THE FLIGHT OF THE FLY!"

As 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 b.u.t.terflies.

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 pa.s.s 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."

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE THREE R'S

The meeting of the Three R's the next evening was one of particular importance. Not only to the eager reporters, who found that even Dot's party would not spread out sufficiently to use up the s.p.a.ce they had allotted to social events, but to the club members themselves. It was Judge Arthur's fiftieth birthday, and as he was a childless man, quite alone in the world, his friendly neighbors were determined to make the day memorable for him. The meeting was to be at Three Gables, so the journalists were behind the scenes from the start. The only difficulty in the way of their writing it up was that they were so busy all day that there was not time to take a pen in hand.

"I always see to the refreshments when they meet here," said Catherine to her three helpers, as she appeared, wearing by Hannah's request, her brown smock. "You can crack the nuts for the salad if you will, Frieda; and Hannah, if you and Alice will get the dishes out of the way, that would be the most help. Mother wants Inga to sweep the living-room, and we can have a jolly time out here."

"You ought to see the kitchen at Frieda's house," said Hannah, as she made a fine suds in the rinsing pan and poured it over the gla.s.ses.

"What did you think of our black stoves and things, Frieda?"

"I saw one in the American church first, you know."

Hannah smiled at the diplomatic evasion. "You are the nicest thing I ever saw, Frieda. You don't say anything unfavorable of anything any more. When I was at your house I kept criticising the whole country. But you are so polite,--as polite as Karl!"

Frieda looked pleased, but she only said sedately: "We were children when you were in Berlin, Hannah. Now it is proper for us to act like grown-ups."

"You were awfully grown-up in that pillow fight last night!"

Instantly the mask of primness vanished from Frieda's face, and roguish twinkles showed themselves.