of some kind.”
Helen helped her mother with the preparations for supper, setting the table and carrying the food from the kitchen to the dining room where broad windows opened out on the porch.
Tom, who had been upstairs washing the last of the ink from his hands, entered the kitchen.
“Supper about ready?” he asked. “I’m mighty hungry tonight.”
“All ready,” smiled his mother. “I’ll call your father.”
Helen turned on the lights in the dining room and they waited for their father to come from his bedroom. They could hear low voices for several minutes and finally Mrs. Blair returned to the dining room.
“We’ll go ahead and eat,” she managed to smile. “Your father doesn’t feel like supper right now.”
Tom started to say something, but Helen shook her head and they sat down and started their evening meal.
Mrs. Blair, usually gay and interested in the activities of the day, had little to say, but Helen talked of school and the activities and plans of the sophomore class.
“We’re going to have a picnic down the lake next Monday,” she said.
“That’s nothing,” said Tom, who was president of the junior class. “We’re giving the seniors the finest banquet they’ve ever had.”
Whereupon they fell into a heated argument over the merits of the sophomores and juniors, a question which had been debated all year without a definite decision. Sometimes Tom considered himself the victor while on other occasions Helen had the best of the argument.
Supper over, Helen helped her mother clear the table and wash the dishes. It was seven-thirty before they had finished their work in the kitchen and Mrs. Blair was on her way to her husband’s room when Doctor Stevens, bag in hand, walked in.
A neighbor for many years, the genial doctor did not stop to knock.
“Haven’t been in for weeks,” he said, “so thought I’d drop over and chin with Hugh for a while.”
“Hugh isn’t feeling very well,” said Mrs. Blair. “He came home from the office this afternoon and didn’t want anything for supper.”
“Let me have a look at him,” said Doctor Stevens. “Suppose his stomach is out of whack or something like that.”
Tom and Helen, standing in the dining room, watched Doctor Stevens and their mother go down the hall to their father’s bedroom.
The next half hour was one of the longest in their young lives. Tom tried to read the continued story in the Herald, while Helen fussed at first one thing and then another.
The door of their father’s room finally opened and Doctor Stevens summoned them.
Neither Tom nor Helen would ever forget the scene in their father’s bedroom that night. Their mother, seated at the far side of the bed, looked at them through tear-dimmed eyes.
Their father, reclining on the bed, looked taller than ever, and the lines of pain which Helen had noticed in his face that afternoon had deepened. His hands were moving nervously and his eyes were bright with fever.
“Sit down,” said Doctor Stevens as he took a chair beside Hugh Blair’s bed.
Tom was about to ask his father how he felt, when Doctor Stevens spoke again.
“We might as well face this thing together,” he said. “I’ll tell you now that it is going to be something of a fight for all of you, but unless I’m mistaken, the Blairs are all real fighters.”
“What’s the matter Doctor Stevens?” Helen’s voice was low and strained.
“Your father must take a thorough rest,” he said. “He will have to go to some southwestern state for a number of months. Perhaps it will only take six months, but it may be longer.”
“But I can’t be away that long,” protested Hugh Blair. “I must think of my family, of the Herald.”
“Your family must think of you now,” said Doctor Stevens firmly. “That’s why I wanted to talk this over with Tom and Helen.”
“Just what is wrong, Dad?” asked Tom.
Doctor Stevens answered the question.
“Lung trouble,” he said quietly. “Your father has spent too many years bent over his desk in that dark cubbyhole of his – too many years without a vacation. Now he’s got to give that up and devote a number of months to building up his body again.”
Helen felt the blood racing through her body. Her throat went dry and her head ached. She had realized only that afternoon that her father wasn’t well but she had not been prepared for Doctor Stevens’ announcement.
The doctor was talking again.
“I blame myself partly,” he was telling Hugh Blair. “You worked yourself into this almost under my eyes, and I never dreamed what was happening. Too close to you, I guess.”
“When do you think Hugh should start for the southwest?” asked Helen’s mother.
“Just as soon as we can arrange things,” replied Doctor Stevens. “This is Thursday. I’d like to have him on the way by Saturday night. Every day counts.”
“That’s impossible,” protested Hugh Blair, half rising from his bed. “I don’t see how I can possibly afford it. Think of the expense of a trip down there, of living there. What about the Herald? What about my family?”
A plan had been forming in Helen’s mind from the time Doctor Stevens had said her father must go to a different climate.
“Everything will be all right, Dad,” she said. “There isn’t a reason in the world why you shouldn’t go. Tom and I are capable of running the Herald and with what you’ve saved toward our college educations, you can make the trip and stay as long as you want to.”
“But I couldn’t think of using your college money,” protested her father, “even if you and Tom could run the Herald.”
“Helen’s got the right idea,” said Doctor Stevens. “Your health must come above everything else right now. I’m sure those youngsters can run the Herald. Maybe they’ll do an even better job than you,” he added with a twinkle in his eyes.
“We can run the paper in fine shape, Dad,” said Tom. “If you hired someone from outside to come in and take charge it would eat up all the profits. If Helen and I run the Herald, we’ll have every cent we make for you and mother.”
Mrs. Blair, who had been silent during the discussion, spoke.
“Hugh,” she said, “Tom and Helen are right. I know how you dislike using their college money, but it is right that you should. I am sure that they can manage the Herald.”
Thus it was arranged that Tom and Helen were to take charge of the Herald. They talked with the superintendent of schools the next day and he agreed to excuse them from half their classes for the remaining weeks of school with the provision that they must pass all of their final examinations.
