“Perhaps you can,” assented Ralph.  “Here is a pencil and some copy paper.  You had better try at once, as I will have to go to press earlier than usual to allow for ‘snags,’” and he smiled to apologize for the newspaper slang.

Dorothy sat down at her father’s desk.  Somehow, she felt a confidence in her efforts when seated there, where he had worked so faithfully, and successfully, too, for the Bugle sounded always the note of truth and sincerity.  She started at once to write up the parade.  She should be careful, of course, not to mention the major’s name, or her own (her father never did) and she hoped she could at least make a good composition or essay on Memorial Day.

Dorothy worked earnestly, for she meant to have that issue of the paper up to the mark, if her labors could bring it there.

Ralph had rolled up his sleeves again, and was busy with the press.  Tavia was “nosing around,” as she expressed it.  The door opened suddenly and little Johnnie Travers rushed in.

“The major sent me—­to tell you—­” and he had to get a new breath in somehow—­” to tell you that old Mrs. Douglass is—­is dead!” he finally managed to say.  “He wants you to be sure to—­to—­put her in the paper.”

“Nothing but live stuff in this paper, Johnnie dear,” spoke up Tavia.  “Mrs. Douglass was bad enough alive—­but dead!  We really haven’t space,” and, in spite of the real seriousness of the matter, for Mrs. Douglass was an important woman in Dalton, or had been up to that morning, Ralph and Dorothy were compelled to laugh at the wit of their friend.

“She was a big woman,” said Ralph, adding to the mix-up in language, “and the Bugle is small.  But being ‘big’ we cannot afford to slight her memory.  There is so little time—­”

“I can write that,” said Tavia, shaking her head with a meaning.  “And I know all about Mrs. Douglass and her high fence.  Also the flowers behind the boxwood.  Here, Doro, give me some of that paper—­”

“Oh, you would have to see some of the family,” interrupted Ralph.  “Find out how she died, when she will be buried; if she said anything interesting—­about charities, you know—­”

“For mine!” sang out Tavia, adjusting her hat.

“Yes, your first assignment,” ventured Ralph.  “Dorothy must finish the parade, and I must attend to the typesetting, so if you could, really,—­”

“Of course I can.  Haven’t I spent more time in the graveyard than at school?  And don’t I know what they say about dead persons?

    “’Here lies Mrs. Doug,—­
     She had a mug,
     And none in Dalt could match it,
     When she took sick,
     She died that quick,
     The Bugle couldn’t catch it.’

“How’s that?” went on the girl.  “Shows it was our busy day and we hadn’t time to catch the dead news, not Mrs. Doug’s face, you know.”

“Oh, Tavia, what slang!” cried Dorothy, and added:  “you had better not go, you will surely say or do something—­”