"Want to go to Cranston Friday or Saturday?" asked Tom.
"I surely do," Helen replied. "But what for, Tom, and can we afford it?"
"One of us will have to make the trip," her brother said. "Putting on this farm page means we'll have to print two more pages at home, six altogether, and will need only two pages of ready-print a week from the World Printing Company. We'll go down and talk with their manager at Cranston and select the features we want for the two pages they will continue to print for us."
"Our most important features in the ready-print now are the comics, the serial story and the fashion news for women," said Helen.
"Then we'll have one page of comics," said Tom, "and fill the other page with features of special interest to our women readers."
The next three days found the young Blairs so busy getting out the current edition of the paper that they had little time to talk about their plans.
They had decided to go to Cranston Friday but when Helen found that there were special rates for Saturday, they postponed the trip one day. When the Friday morning mail arrived, Helen was glad they had changed their plans. While sorting the handful of letters, most of them circulars destined for the wastepaper basket, she came upon the letter she had been looking forward to for days. The words in the upper left hand corner thrilled her. It was from the Cranston bureau of the Associated Press.
With fingers that trembled slightly, she tore it open. Would she get the job as Rolfe correspondent? A green slip dropped out of the envelope and Tom, who had come in from the composing room, reached down and picked it up.
"What's that?" demanded Helen, incredulously.
"It's your check from the Associated Press for covering the tornado," explained Tom. "Look!"
Helen took the slip of crisp, green paper. She wasn't dreaming. It was a check, made out in her name and for $10.
"But there must be some mistake," she protested. "They didn't mean to pay me that much."
"If you think there's a mistake," grinned Tom, "you can go and see them when we reach Cranston tomorrow. However, if I were you, I'd tuck it in my pocket, invite my brother across the street to the drug store, and buy him a big ice cream soda."