The Green Forest tribune., 1916-09-29
ACCEPTING ASSIGNMENTS:
By SEXTON LEE.


 Jean Granby sat among the pillows on the window seat. Her mother and father and her aunt and uncle, who had come in to spend the evening, sat around the fireplace. Jeans brother Jack, who stood by the library table puffing cigarette, picked up the Eve ming Argus and looked carelessly over It's four pages.
 Gee! A deaf and dumb and blind man could get up more news than this paper prints" was his sweeping crit icism.
 The thoughtless brother had given Jean suggestion which she thought over all during the evening. The next morning she astonished Mir. Archibald Edwards by appearing in his sanctum and asking for a job as reporter on the Argus.
 "Why, Miss Granby, nothing would please me more If it were practicable, or even possible" stammered the sur prised editor.
 Now, Mir. Edwards, first let me tell you what a practical and possible plan I have" Jean was convincingly m earnest, and she made a charming pie ture in trim blue cheviot suit and a Highland cap with a bit of plaid rib bon dangling from it. Her dark eyes flashed and her color deepened as she unfolded her plan, which was to arouse the social and civic spirit of Marshton by q persistent appeal through the Argus. There was to be column headed, It's Up to You" an other headed, "How the Women Can Help" and another, "Marsht0n's Many Merits
 An hour later Mr. Edwards was un- able to tell whether it was the bonnie smiles of the applicant or the plausi- bility of her plan that had induced him to "take her on."
 The plan worked so well that few weeks after Jean began her work on that paper there were many evidences that Marshton was beginning to shake off it's social and civic stagnation In the Argus office rushing activity be- came the daily program in all depart ments.
 On the same morning that the fore mans wife telephoned the office of her husbands illness with the grip Mir. Edwards had q violent seizure of lumbago. Jean faced the crisis brave ly, but she realized the imposSibility ,f in Snrt of shape with the two mainStayS Of the machinery missing. She remem- bered having heard Mr. Edwards say that his nephew, now reporter on a city daily, had been a most promising all-round newspaper worker when he left the Argus office few years be- fore Something had to be done quick ly, and Jean decided to telegraph for the nephew, for there wasn't an avail able man in Marshton.
 It was then ten o'clock and the first edition should be out by one, so Jean rolled up the sleeves of her soft white shirtwaist. and for the next three hours fluttered back and forth from editorial desk to composing and print ing rooms. It was 1 80 when the first edition was out.
 She was AAas; II saa F 2 ise.' i;aes q a paper just off the press when the office door opened and tall, broad shouldered man entered the room. It had evidently been more than few years since that man had been merely a promising boy, yet Jean rightly guessed that he was Mir. Edwards nephew.
 "Mr. Bert Edwards?" she asked and there was slight twinkle in the mans gray eyes as he inclined his head af- firmatively.
 q am Miss Granby, special writer on the Argus, but today I've been ed itor and foreman as well. I'm going to ask you to take hold of the fore mans work at once so as to get the home edition out promptly. Wher that is done we can work together or tomorrow's editorial page. I've go to give the next two hours to somt special interview stuff"
 Thus coolly did Jean assume th' generalship, and the tall man accepted the assignment without letting he see his amused smile as he turned away. For the next two days, he dit cheerfully and went about wha should be done. On the morning o the third day Mir. Edwards returne to the office.
 npff help me out in a pinch" he said, i greeting his nephew, "and Miss Grar by, it was like you to know what to d in an emergency. I'm glad you ser for Bert. But how did your chic happen to let you off, Bert?' I'm pretty much my chief, Uncl George, and I had two capable youn fellows to leave at my desk" At your desk? Why, what's yot position now?" asked his uncle. "City editor" said Bert quietly. vii feeting glance at Jean, who val ished blushingly into the next room. Half an hour late, when Mir. E wards was deep in his accumulate . of mail Bert encountered Jean amor some old newspaper files. She can to him at once with her hand eXtendt in apology, and her shy confusit '- helped to make her unusually attra
 tive locking.
 "I hope I haven't seemed unpardo
 ably priggish," she said, giving 8 n signments to a superior. l was
 concerned about getting out the pap l. that 1 lost all sense of everythi