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Chapter VII
Northfield Helps Itself

THE EDITORIAL home of the Northfield Breeze was a corner room on the top floor of the Northfield High School. The room, tucked into an out-of-the-way wing of the building, had the remote appearance of an architectural afterthought. A stranger, strolling through the corridors, might have passed the doorway with the impression that the threshold probably led to a storage chamber for janitor's supplies. It was a dull and uninviting doorway.

But once inside the room one would have recognized the calling of the place. Three scarred tables held implements that possessed an editorial look—ancient type-shears loose on their hinges, and disordered piles of school papers and magazines. Drawings that had had their day of renown in the school weekly hung framed upon the walls; and there was also a well-preserved letter of advice that a famed novelist had once written to a Breeze staff. That letter was each succeeding editor's heirloom, to be duly pondered and