“You’ll feel better in a few more hours,” said Tom. “It’s the suddenness of it all. Now we’ve got to buckle down and make the Herald keep on paying dividends.”
Tom and Helen helped their mother clear away the breakfast dishes and then dressed for Sunday school. Mrs. Blair taught a class of ten-to-twelve-year-old girls. Tom and Helen were in the upper classes.
The Methodist church they attended was a red brick structure, the first brick building built in Rolfe, and it was covered with English ivy that threatened even to hide the windows. The morning was warm and restful and they enjoyed the walk from home to church.
The minister was out of town on his vacation and there were no church services. After Sunday school the Blairs walked down to the postoffice. The large mail box which was rented for the Herald was filled with papers, circulars and letters.
“We might as well go back to the office and sort this out,” said Tom, and Mrs. Blair and Helen agreed.
The office was just as Tom and Helen had left it Thursday night for they had been too busy since then helping with the arrangements for their father’s departure to clean it up.
The type was still in the forms, papers were scattered on the floor and dust had gathered on the counter and the desk which had served Hugh Blair for so many years.
“I’ll open the windows and the back door,” said Tom, “and we’ll get some air moving through here. It’s pretty stuffy.”
Mrs. Blair sat down in the swivel chair in front of her husband’s desk and Helen pulled up the only other chair in the office, an uncomfortable straight-backed affair.
“You’re editor now,” Mrs. Blair told Helen. “You’d better start in by sorting the mail.”