“Why Tom,” she went on enthusiastically, “think what it would mean to Dad?”
“I’m thinking of that,” nodded her brother, “but I’m also thinking of what Burr Atwell might do to the Herald.”
CHAPTER XII
Special Assignment
The enlarged edition of the Herald attracted so much comment and praise from the readers that Tom and Helen felt well repaid for their additional efforts. Tom sat down and figured out the profit, deducted all expenses, and announced that they had made $78 on the edition, which, they agreed, was a figure they should strive to reach each week.
“If we can keep that up,” commented Tom, “we’ll be sitting on top of the world.”
“But if we were only an official county paper we’d have the moon, too,” Helen said.
They discussed the pros and cons of getting enough additional circulation to beat the Auburn Advocate and the danger of arousing the anger of Burr Atwell, its publisher.
“We don’t need to make a big campaign for subscriptions,” argued Helen. “We’ve taken the biggest step right now—improving and expanding the amount of local and country reading matter. Whenever I have an extra afternoon this summer I’ll drive out in the country and see if I can’t get some people who haven’t been subscribers to take our paper.”
Tom agreed with Helen’s suggestion and that very afternoon they took the old family touring car, filled it with gas and oil, and ambled through the countryside. Tom had a list of farmers who were non-subscribers and before the afternoon was over they had added half a dozen new names to the Herald’s circulation list. In addition, they had obtained at least one item of farm news at every place they stopped.
“I call that a good afternoon’s work,” Helen commented when they drove the ancient flivver into the garage at home.