Chain of Fools

while Skeeter and I played hearts. Janet was present for the delivery— a highly unorthodox arrangement, hospital officials insisted, but they weren't about to tangle with Janet and Dale.
The other event that May was this: Harry Griscomb Newspapers suffered a financial near-collapse and the third generation of Griscombs seized control of the chain and sold it to the new newspaper division at United States Tobacco. Janet was fired a day later, as were two-thirds of the paper's reporters and all the copy editors. Tidy Osborne Puder-baugh was named publisher of the Herald—"to maintain the respected Osborne family traditions," the new owner said—and a new editor was brought in from the Maryville, Missouri, Epworth-Tribune The features and standards that had made the Herald great soon vanished from its pages—but it did gain a bridge column.