From Office Boy to Reporter; Or, The First Step in Journalism

by Howard Roger Garis

He made up his mind he would go home as usual to supper, and prepare to go to his night class. On his way there he would purchase a small shovel at a nearby hardware store. This he could conceal under his coat until he got to the lot, and he could then hide it under the fence. He also got a small lantern that burned a candle, and this he intended hiding with the shovel.

Once these two important things were hidden away Larry meant to walk across the lot just at dusk, before going to school, and see if he could not locate the place where the men had dug. If he could he would mark the spot more accurately with his handkerchief and then, coming home from his class, he could dig in the darkness and no one would be likely to observe him, as the spot was lonesome and people seldom went there except in daylight.

Larry’s plan worked out well. He got the shovel and lantern and hid them under a fallen wall, in a convenient place. Then he strolled across the big field, just at nightfall, when it was difficult to distinguish forms fifty feet away. There was no moon and the sky was cloudy.

Larry pretended to be idly walking across the lot. Occasionally he would stoop, pick up a stone and cast it into the air, as boys have a habit of doing. He thought if anyone noticed him, they would not attach any importance to his presence.

He found his handkerchief where he had left it, but it was not near any place where the earth seemed to have been recently dug up.

“I guess I must be a little off the track,” the boy thought. “Let’s see. If I can find the wall I hid behind, I think I can locate the place where the men were.”

After looking about a little Larry found the fallen wall. He recalled that, as he had stooped down behind it he had seen, over the top, the spire of a church. And he recalled that the three men were in a direct line between the stone and the church steeple.

“Then if I walk out in a straight line from the stone, toward the church, I ought to come across the place,” said Larry to himself.

Taking an observation from behind the stone he located the church spire. Then, walking as straight as possible, he passed out from the fallen wall.

“It ought to be about here,” he said. As he spoke his foot sank down into a soft spot in the ground. Larry lighted the candle and flashed his lantern on the place.