Before morning old Jack Frost snapped his fingers and the whole world was encased in ice. The sidewalks were a glare, the trees, and bushes, to their tiniest twig, were as brittle as icicles, and a thin white blanket had been laid upon the lawns along Whiffle Street.
It was the first really cold snap of winter. Chet Belding came clumping down to breakfast that Saturday morning.
“Skating shoes!” exclaimed his sister, Laura. “What for, Sir Knight?”
“I bet a feller can skate in the street—on the sidewalk—almost anywhere this morning,” declared Chet, with enthusiasm.
“You don’t mean to try it?” cried Laura.
“I’ll eat my honorable grandmother’s hat if I don’t——”
“Chetwood!”
The horrified ejaculation came from behind the coffee percolator. Mrs. Belding had been perusing her morning mail. Mr. Chetwood chuckled, but graduated it into a pronounced cough.
“Yes, ma’am!” said Chet, meekly.
“What kind of language is this that you bring to our table? Your grandmother certainly was honorable——”
“That’s an imitation of the stilted expressions of the Japs and Chinks,” interrupted Chetwood. “Thought you’d like it. It’s formal, abounds in flowery expressions, and may not be hastened. Quotation from Old Dimple,” he added, sotto voce.
“Please leave your grandmother out of it,” said Mrs. Belding, severely. “And if you mean Professor Dimp, your teacher at Central High, do not call him ‘Old Dimple’ in my presence,” which showed that Mother Belding’s hearing was pretty acute.
“Anyhow,” said Chet, “I’m going to try the ice after breakfast. Going to get Lance and we’ll have some fun. Better get your skates, Laura.”
“No. I’m going to the store with father—if we don’t both tumble down and roll to the bottom of the hill at Market Street, like Jack and Jill,” laughed his sister.
“Teams can’t get over the asphalt this morning,” said her brother. “We can coast clear to the elbow, I bet you.”
He hurried through his breakfast and some time after Laura and her father started for the jewelry store, in which the girl had certain Saturday morning tasks to perform, the voices of Chet and his friends awoke the echoes of the street as they skated on the asphalt.
Whiffle Street was an easy slope toward the elbow, where Jess Morse and her mother lived. Although the keen wind blew pretty strongly right up the hill, when Laura and her father started for the store the boys were holding hands and in a line that swept the street from curb to curb, sailed gaily down the hill upon their skates.
“That’s fun!” exclaimed Laura, her cheeks rosy with the wind, and her eyes sparkling.
“It’s just like life,” said her father, “It’s easy going down hill; but see what a pull it is to get up again,” for Chet and his comrades had then begun the homeward skate.
Lance Darby, a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked lad, who was Chet’s particular chum, was ahead and he came, puffingly, to a stop just before Laura.
“This is great—if it wasn’t for the ‘getting back again.’ Good-morning, Mr. Belding.”
“Why don’t you boys rig something to tow you up the hill?” asked Laura, laughing, and half hiding her face in her muff.
“Huh!” ejaculated her brother, coming up, too. “How’d we rig it, Sis?”
“Come on, Mother Wit!” laughed Lance. “You tell us.”
“Why—I declare, Chet’s got just the thing standing behind the door in his den,” cried Laura, her eyes twinkling.
“What?” cried Chet “You’re fooling us, Laura. My snowshoes——”
“Not them,” laughed Laura, preparing to go on with her father.
“I know!” shouted Lance, slapping his chum suddenly on the back. He was as familiar with Chet’s room as was Chet himself.
“Out with it, then!” demanded Chet.
“That big kite of yours. Wind’s directly up the hill. We’ll get it and try the scheme. Oh, you Mother Wit!” shouted Lance, after Laura. “We’re going after the kite.”
And that suggestion of Laura’s was the beginning of Chet and Lance Darby’s “mile-a-minute iceboat”—but more of that wonderful invention later.
Laura was halted again before she reached Market Street, and her father went on without her, for it was now half-past eight. Jess Morse waved to her from a window, and in a moment came running out in a voluminous checked apron and a gay sweater-coat, hastily “shrugged” on.
“Where were you last night?” cried Laura. “We missed you dreadfully at the M. O. R. house.”
“I—I really couldn’t come,” said her chum, hesitating just a little, for it was hard not to be perfectly frank with Laura, who was always so open and confidential with her. “Mother is so busy—she worked half the night——”
“Genius burns the midnight oil, eh?” laughed Laura.
“Yes, indeed. And now I’m about to make her toast and brew her tea, and she will take it, propped up in bed, and read over the work she did last night. Saturdays, when I am home, is mother’s ‘lazy day.’ She says she feels quite like a lady of leisure then.”
“But you should have come to the first big reception of the winter,” complained her chum.
“Couldn’t. But I heard that there was something very wonderful going to happen, just the same,” cried Jess.
“What do you mean?”
“My goodness me! Somebody is a telltale,” cried Laura, laughing. “We were not going to spread the news until Monday morning.”
Jess told her how the rumor of the prize had come to her ears.
“No use—it’s all out, and all over town, if Bobby Hargrew got hold of it.”
“But what’s Mrs. Mabel Kerrick going to give the two hundred dollars for?”
“Oh, Jess! it’s a great scheme, I believe—and it’s mine,” said Laura, proudly.
“But you don’t tell me what it is,” cried her chum, impatiently.
“It’s to be given for the best play written by a Central High girl, between now and the first of January. Any girl can compete—even the freshies. And then we’ll produce it, and get money for the M. O. R. building fund.”
“A play!” gasped Jess, her face flushing.
“That’s it. And the Lockwood girls are going to try for it—and so’s Nell Agnew. Will you, Jess? Just think of two hundred dollars!”
“I am thinking of it,” replied her chum. “Oh, Laura! I’m thinking of it all the time.”
She said it so earnestly that Laura stared at her in amazement.
“My dear child!” she cried. “Does two hundred dollars mean so much to you?”
“I—I can’t tell you how hard I want to win it,” gasped Jess.
“Well! I’m going to try for it, too,” laughed Laura, suddenly, seizing her friend’s arm and giving it an affectionate squeeze. “But I do hope, if I can’t win it, that you do!”
“Thank you, Laura!” replied her friend, gravely.
“And your mother’s a writer—you must have talent, too, for writing, Jess.”
“That doesn’t follow, I guess,” laughed Jess. “You know that Si Jones talks like a streak of greased lightning—so Chet says, anyway—but his son, Phil, is a deaf-mute. Talent for writing runs in families the same as wooden legs.”
“So you do not believe that even a little reflected glory bathes your path through life?” chuckled Laura.
“I am not sure that I would want to be a professional writer like mother,” sighed Jess, her mind dwelling on the trouble they were in. “There is a whole lot to it besides ‘glory.’”
“Well, if I can’t write the winning play, I hope you do, Jess,” repeated Laura, going on after her father.
Jess returned to her work indoors. From the window, after a little, she caught sight of a whole string of boys sliding up the hill of Whiffle Street on their skates, the big kite which Chet and Lance had raised supplying the motive power.
Chet beckoned her out to have a part in the fun; but much more serious matters filled Jess Morse’s mind. When her mother finally arose, and folded and sealed and addressed the packet containing her night’s work, Jess had to go out and mail it.
“I really believe that is a good story, Jess,” said her mother, who was sanguine of temperament. She had a childish faith in the success of every manuscript she sent out; and usually when her chickens “came home to roost” her spirits withstood the shock admirably.
“Now, don’t forget the list of things you were to get at Mr. Closewick’s,” added Mrs. Morse. Jess had kept her evening’s troubles strictly to herself. “I believe he sent in a bill, but you tell him how it is; we’ll have money in a day or two.”
“But, Mother, we owe other stores, too,” murmured Jess.
“I know it, child. But don’t remind me——”
“And the rent will be due. Mr. Chumley was here last night——”
“Not for his rent so soon?” cried the irresponsible lady.
“But he is going to raise our rent—three dollars more after January first.”
“Oh, how mean of him!” exclaimed Mrs. Morse.
“I don’t see how we are going to get it, Mother,” said Jess, worriedly.
“Well, that’s true. But we’ve got another month before we need to cross that bridge.”
That was Mrs. Morse’s way. Perhaps it was as well that she allowed such responsibilities to slip past her like water running off the feathers of a duck.
“And if Mr. Closewick shouldn’t want to—to trust us any longer, Mother?” suggested Jess. That was as near as she could get to telling the good lady what had really happened the night before.
“Why! that would be most mortifying. He won’t do it, though. But if he does, we’ll immediately begin trading elsewhere, I don’t really think Mr. Closewick always gives us good weight, at that!”
Jess could only sigh. It was always the way. Mrs. Morse saw things from a most surprising angle. She was just as honest—intentionally—as she could be, but the ethics of business dealing were not quite straight in her mind.
And something must be done this very day to put food in the larder. What little Jess had brought in from Mr. Vandergriff’s store would not last them over Sunday. And her mother seemed to think that everybody else would be just as sanguine of her getting a check as she was herself.
“I do wish you had been able to get steady work with the Courier,” spoke Jess, as she prepared to go out.
“That would have been nice,” admitted her mother. “And I am in a position to know a good deal of what goes on socially on the Hill. I am welcome in the homes of the very best people, for your father’s sake, Jess. He was a very fine man, indeed.”
“And for your own sake, too, Mamma!” cried Jess, who was really, after all, very proud of her mother’s talent.
“It would have been nice,” repeated Mrs. Morse. “And certainly the Courier is not covering the Hill as well as might be. I pointed that out to Mr. Prentice; but he is limited in expenditures, I suppose, the paper being a new venture.”
It was on the tip of the girl’s tongue to tell her mother of the visit of Mr. Prentice’s sister-in-law the evening before. But why disturb her mother’s mind with all that trouble? So she said nothing, kissed her fondly, and sallied forth to beard in their lairs “the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker.” And, truly, there were few girls in Centerport that day with greater lions in their way than those in the path of Jess Morse.
When Jess came out of the house there was a group of her schoolmates—and not all of them boys—at the foot of the Whiffle Street hill. Being towed by Chet’s big kite had became a game that all hands wanted to try. But the sun was getting warmer and the icy street would soon be slushy and the skates would cut through.
“I’ve had enough,” said Bobby Hargrew, removing her skates when she spied Jess. “The policeman has warned us once, and he’ll be mad next time he comes around if we’re here still.”
“Better get your skates, Jess, and try it just once,” urged Chet Belding, who was very partial to his sister’s closet chum.
“I can’t, Chet,” replied Jess. “I must do my Saturday’s marketing.”
“Hullo! here’s Short and Long!” cried Bobby, as a very short boy with very brisk legs came sliding down the hill with a big bundle under his arm.
Billy Long was an industrious youngster who only allowed himself leisure to keep up in athletics after school hours, because he liked to earn something toward his family’s support.
“Stop and try a ride, Billy,” urged Lance Darby, holding the cord of the tugging kite.
“Can’t. Going on an errand.”
“Hey, Billy! how’s your dyspepsia?” demanded another of the boys.
Billy grinned. Bobby exclaimed:
“Now, don’t tell me that Short and Long ever has trouble with his digestion—I won’t believe it!”
“He sure had a bad case of it yesterday,” drawled Chet Belding. “At least, so Mr. Sharp said. Billy spelled it with an ‘i’.”
“Let me use your knife a minute, please?” asked Bobby, who was still struggling with a refractory strap. “No! just toss it to me.”
“That’s all right,” returned the small boy, with a grin, as he walked over and carefully handed Bobby the knife. “I don’t take any chances with girls in throwing, or catching. All my sister can do is to throw a fit, or catch a cold!”
“Ow! isn’t that a wicked statement?” cried Bobby. “You know it isn’t so. But you’re right down ignorant, Billy. You’re just as bad as Postscript was in Gee Gee’s class one day this week.”
“Who’s ‘Postscript’?” demanded Lance. “That’s a new one on me.”
“Why,” said Bobby, her black eyes twinkling, “I mean Adeline Moore. That’s a postscript, isn’t it?”
“What happened to Addie?” asked Jess, as the others laughed.
“Why, she got befuddled in reciting something about an Indian uprising that came in our American History hour. It’s all review stuff, you know.
“‘What is it that you call an Indian woman, Adeline?’ Gee Gee asked, real sharp.
“And Addie jumped, and stammered, and finally said:
“‘A squaw, please, Miss Carrington.’
“‘And what do you call her baby, then?’ snapped Gee Gee.
“‘A—a squawker,’ says Addie, and the poor thing got a black mark for it. Wasn’t that mean?”
“Miss Grace G. Carrington was in one of her moods,” observed Chet, when the laugh had subsided.
“She’s subject to moods,” Lance drawled.
“No, she’s not!” cried Bobby Hargrew. “She only had one mood—the imperative—and we girls are all subject to that,” and she sighed, for Bobby was frequently in trouble with the very strict assistant principal of Central High whom she disrespectfully referred to as “Gee Gee.”
Jess and her friend had left the others now and were approaching Market Street. Like everybody else on the walks, they had to be careful how they stepped, and it was with many a laugh and gibe that Bobby Hargrew beguiled the way. Jess, however, was serious once more.
“Are you really going in for that prize Mrs. Kerrick is going to put up for us?” demanded Bobby.
“Do you know what it’s for?”
“No—I haven’t heard that,” said the younger girl. “But for two hundred dollars I’d learn tatting—or darn socks. Daddy says I ought to learn to darn his. What’s it all about, anyway? I suppose Laura knows?”
“Yes. It’s a play. The girl who writes the best one, that can be acted by us boys and girls of Central High, is to get the prize.”
“Gee! won’t that be nuts for Miss Gould?” cried Bobby. “You know, she tried us out in blank verse the other day, and I made a hit. My stately lines were spoken of with commendation. And when she told us to bring in a rhyme, or poetry—whichever we had the courage to call it—I wanted to read mine out loud. But she wouldn’t let me. She said she had not intended to start a school for humorous poets.”
“What did you hand in?” asked Jess, smiling.
“Want to hear it?” cried Bobby, eagerly, digging into her pocket which—like a boy’s—was always filled with a conglomeration of articles. “Listen here!” she added, drawing forth a crumpled paper. “This is called ‘Such is Life’ and really, I was hurt that Miss Gould considered it so lightly,” and she began to read at once:
“‘William Wright was often wrong
And Thomas Goode was bad;
While Griffith Smiley, odd to state,
Was almost always sad.
Jedediah Rich was very poor,
While Ozias Poor was rich,
And Eliphalet Q. Carpenter
Earned his living digging ditch.
Tom White was black Jim Black was white,
And Jose Manuel Green was brown;
While Ching Ling Blu was yellow,
As was known all over town!’
“I’d have made more of it,” added Bobby, “only Miss Gould didn’t seem to care for that kind of poetry. And I suppose if I tried my hand at a play that I would be unable to hit the popular taste,” and she sighed.
“I guess they won’t demand verse from us in this play,” giggled Jess. “And that is most atrocious, Bobby.”
“Think so?” returned her friend, her eyes twinkling. “And you’ll do a whole lot better when it comes to writing your own play, I s’pose?”
“It won’t be in verse—blank, or otherwise,” admitted Jess.
“You really are going to try for it?”
“Why, Bobby, I’d love to win that two hundred dollars. I don’t suppose I can. All the girls will try, I expect, and Laura, or Nell Agnew, will get it. But I want that two hundred dollars worse than I ever wanted anything in my life!”
She spoke so earnestly that Bobby was impressed. The latter glanced at her sidewise and a shrewd little smile hovered about her lips for a moment, which Jess did not observe.
“Where are you bound for, Jess?” she asked abruptly.
“Marketing.”
“You trade at Heuffler’s market, don’t you? That’s right around the corner from father’s store. Why don’t you ever patronize our place for groceries. I’m drumming up trade,” said Bobby, grinning.
“I guess our trade wouldn’t amount to much,” said Jess, flushing a little.
“‘Every little bit added to what you’ve got makes just a little bit more,’” quoted Bobby. “And let me tell you, Mr. Thomas Hargrew keeps first-class goods and only asks a fair profit.”
Jess laughed; but she caught at the straw held out to her, too. She knew it would be useless to go to Mr. Closewick’s, where they usually traded. Was it honest to try and obtain credit at another grocery?
“I am afraid your father wouldn’t welcome me as a customer,” said Jess, gravely. “Ours isn’t always a cash trade. Mother’s money comes so very irregular that we have to run a bill at the grocery and the market and other places.”
“Come on and give us a sample order,” urged Bobby. “Father will be glad to get another book account. Now, if you were running a store I’d patronize it! We Central High girls ought to work together—just like a lodge. Come on.”
She fairly dragged Jess by the hand into the store on Market Street, over the door of which Mr. Hargrew’s name was displayed. The clerks were busy at the moment, but Mr. Hargrew was at his desk in the corner. Bobby ran to him and whispered quickly:
“Here she is, Father. You remember what that Mrs. Brown said last night about old Closewick refusing her credit after her mother had traded there so long. And I am sure Jess is in trouble and needs help. Do wait on her, Father.”
“If you say so, Bob,” returned the big man, smiling down upon the girl who, he often said, “was as good as any boy.” “You’ll have to come into this store and share the business when you get older; and you might as well learn to judge customers now. And, if they need help——”
He came out to Jess Morse immediately, smiling and bowing like the suave storekeeper he was.
“Glad to see you, Miss, What can we do for you this morning?”
“Why—why,” stammered Jess, “Bobby urged me to come in; but, really, Mr. Hargrew, it seems like asking a big favor of you, for we have never traded here much.”
“We are always glad to make a new connection,” said the storekeeper,
“But mother—we are obliged to ask for credit——”
“And that is what I have to do very frequently myself,” interposed Mr. Hargrew, still smiling. “What is it you wish, Miss Morse? Your credit is good here, I assure you. You have brought the very best of references—my daughter’s. Now, what is the first article?”
Jess could have cried with relief! Somehow she felt that Bobby and her father must know of her need, yet not a word or sign from either betrayed that fact. And one would scarcely suspect harum-scarum Bobby Hargrew of engineering such a delicate bit of business.
Nevertheless, Jess was vastly encouraged by this incident. She went into the meat shop and purchased a small piece of lamb for over Sunday and Mr. Heuffler did not ask her for his bill. She hoped that “something would turn up” and watched the mails very eagerly, hoping that a fugitive check might come. But the postman never came near the little cottage at the elbow in Whiffle Street, all that day.
There was a rustle of expectancy—upon the girls’ side, at least—at Assembly on Monday morning. Rumors of the prize offered for the best play written by a girl of Central High had aroused great interest and the school eagerly awaited Mr. Sharp’s brief remarks regarding it.
“It is not our wish,” said the principal, in the course of his speech, “to restrict the contestants in their choice of subjects, or in methods of treatment. The play may be pure comedy, comedy-drama, tragedy—even farce—or melodrama. Miss Gould will confine her lectures this week in English to the discussion of plays and play-making. Candidates for fame—and for Mrs. Kerrick’s very handsome prize—may learn much if they will faithfully attend Miss Gould’s classes. And, of course, it is understood that there must be no neglect of the regular school work by those striving for the laurel of the playwright.
“I doubt if we have any budding female Shakespeares among us, yet I realize that the youthful mind naturally slants towards tragedy and the redundant phrases of the Greek and Latin masters, as read in their translation; but let me advise all you young ladies who wish to compete for the prize, to select a simple subject and treat it simply.
“Have your play display human nature as you know it, and realism without morbidness.”
The girls of Central High who had heretofore excelled in composition naturally were looked upon as favorites in this race for dramatic honors. Among the Juniors, Laura Belding and Nellie Agnew always received high marks for such work. They possessed the knack of composition and were what Bobby Hargrew called “fluid writers.”
“If it was a jingle or limerick, I’d stand a chance,” sighed Bobby to herself. “But think of the sustained effort of writing a whole play! Gee! two hours and a half long. It would break my heart to sit still long enough to do it.”
Jess Morse had never tried to more than pass in English composition. For the very reason, perhaps, that she had seen the practical side of such a career at home, she had not, like so many girls of her age, contemplated seriously literary employment for herself.
Lily Pendleton was known to have once essayed an erotic novel, and had read a few chapters to some of her closer friends. Bobby said it should have been written on yellow paper with an asbestos pad under it to save scorching Miss Pendleton’s desk. Of course, Lily would attempt a play in the most romantic style.
The boys began to hatch practical jokes anent the play-writing before the week was out; and one afternoon Chet Belding appeared in a group of his sister’s friends, and with serious face declared he had with him the outline and introductory scene of Laura’s play, its caption being:
“The Poisoned Bathing-Suit; or, The Summer Boarder’s Revenge.”
Some of the girls—and not alone the Juniors like Laura, Nellie and Jess—were very serious about this matter of the play. Mrs. Kerrick’s prize spurred every girl who had the least ability in that direction to begin writing a dramatic piece. Some, of course, did not get far; but the main topic of discussion out of school hours among the girls of Central High was the play and the prize.
Jess talked it over with her mother, and Mrs. Morse grew highly excited.
“Why, Josephine, dear, if you could win that prize it would be splendid! Then you could have a new party dress—and a really nice one—and the furs I have been hoping to buy you for two seasons. Dear, dear! what a lot of things you really could get for that sum.”
“I guess it would help us out a whole lot,” admitted the girl “We need so many things——”
“Why, I shouldn’t allow you to use a cent of it for the household—or for me,” cried her mother. “No, indeed.”
“I haven’t won it yet,” sighed Jess. “But I guess if I did win it you’d have to take a part of it, Mother.”
“Nonsense, child!” cried Mrs. Morse. “We’ll have some checks in shortly. And we sha’n’t starve meanwhile. Now, let us look over this plot you have evolved and perhaps I can suggest some helpful points—and show you how to write brisk dialogue. That is something the editors always praise me for—although I have never dared try a play myself. It is so hard to get a hearing before a really responsible manager.”
Outside help for the girls was not debarred by the terms of the contest, so long as the main thread of plot in each play was original with the author, and she actually did the work. Jess listened to the practical suggestions of her mother in relation to her play; but all the time she had upon her mind, too, the domestic difficulties that seemed to have culminated just now in a single great billow of trouble.
No money had come in. She had been obliged to go once more to Mr. Hargrew for groceries, and to the meat store and to Mr. Vandergriff’s. Her mother could talk in her cheerful manner about what she could do with the two hundred dollar prize if she earned it. But Jess was very sure that she would not spend it for personal adornment—although no girl at Central High loved to be dressed in the mode more than Jess Morse.
“If such a darling thing should happen as my winning the prize, I’d put it all in the bank for a nest-egg,” she thought. “Then, when checks do not come in, we would not have to ask for credit. We’d pay up all debts and start square with the world. And then—and then I’d be perfectly happy!”
The first of the month arrived, and with it Mr. Chumley. Mrs. Morse was busy at her desk and said:
“Just tell him, Josephine, that we will have it shortly. He needn’t come again. I’ll let you take it around to his house to him when I get it.”
But this did not suit the old man, and he pushed his way, for once, into the presence of the literary lady.
“Now, see here! Now, see here!” he cackled. “This won’t do at all, Widder—this won’t do at all! I want my money, and I want it prompt. And if you can’t pay your present rent prompt, how do you expect to pay it next month, when you must find three dollars more? Now, tell me that, Ma’am?”
“Really, Mr. Chumley! You are too bad,” complained Mrs. Morse. “I am so hard at work. You quite drive the ideas out of my head. I—I don’t know what train of thought I was following.”
Mr. Chumley snorted. “You’d better be huntin’ the advertisement columns of a newspaper for a job, Widder,” he said. “Them ‘trains of thought’ of yours won’t never carry you nowhere. I gotter have my money. How are you going to get it?”
“I have never failed to pay you heretofore, have I?” asked the lady, bringing out her handkerchief now. “I think this is too bad——”
“But I want money!”
“And you shall have it, I have considerable owing to me—oh, yes! a good deal more than sufficient to pay your rent, Mr. Chumley. You will get it.”
That was a very unsatisfactory interview for the landlord, and particularly so for Mrs. Morse. She complained when he had gone to Jess:
“Now, my day is just spoiled. I’m all at loose ends. It will cost me a day’s work. Really, Josephine, if only people wouldn’t nag me so for money!”
And Jess strove to shield her all that she could from such interviews. Mrs. Morse needed to live alone in a world with her brain-children. Meanwhile her flesh-and-blood child had to fight her battles with the landlord and tradesmen.
It was amid such sordid troubles that Jess evolved the idea for her play. The butterfly is born of the ugly chrysalis; out of this unlovely environment grew a pretty, idyllic comedy which, although crude in spots, and lacking the professional touch which makes a dramatic piece “easy acting,” really showed such promise that Mrs. Morse acclaimed its value loudly.
“Oh, Mother! don’t praise me so much,” begged Jess. “The theme is good, I know. But it scares me. How can I ever dress it up to make it sound like a real play? It sounds so jerky and imperfect—that part that I have written, I mean.”
“There is something a dramatic critic told me once that may be true,” replied her mother. “It was that the piece which reads smoothly seldom acts well; whereas a play that ‘gets over the footlights’ usually reads poorly. You see, action cannot be read aloud; and it is the action that accompanies the words of a dramatic piece that makes those words tell.
“I am not sure that Mr. Sharp and his committee will consider your play the best written, from a literary standpoint; but I understand that they have invited Mr. Monterey, the manager of the Centerport Opera House, to read the plays, too. And you, Josephine, write for him; for they will depend upon his judgment in the choice of the acting qualities of the piece.”
This was good advice, as Jess very well knew. And she could barely keep her mind sufficiently upon her school work to pass the eagle scrutiny of Miss Grace G. Carrington, so wrapped up was she in the play. Not even to Laura did she confide any facts regarding the piece. Some of the girls openly discussed what they had done, and what they hoped; but Jess kept still.
Thursday came and in her mother’s morning mail was a letter with the card of the Centerport Courier in the corner.
“Now, what can that be?” drawled Mrs. Morse, when Jess eagerly brought it to her. “They buy no fugitive matter, and I haven’t sent them anything since having my interview with Mr. Prentice. I really would have been happier to see a letter like that from one of the New York magazines; it might have contained a check in that case,” and she slowly slit the envelope.
But Jess waited in the background with suppressed eagerness in her face and attitude. At once her thought had leaped to Mrs. Prentice. She had not told her mother a word about that lady’s visit on Friday evening, nor her errand to the house. But if Mrs. Prentice was really “the power behind the throne” in the Courier office, she might easily put some regular work in the way of Mrs. Morse.
“Listen to this, child!” exclaimed her mother, having glanced hastily through the letter. “Perhaps I had better take this—for a time, at least. I don’t like the idea of being tied down—it might interfere with my magazine work——”
“Oh, Mother!” cried Jess. “What is it?”
“Listen: Addressed to me, ‘Dear Madam:—Will reconsider your suggestion of covering Hill section for society news. Can afford at least five dollars’ worth of space through the week, and perhaps something extra on Sunday. Come and see me again. Respectfully, P. S. Prentice.’ Well!”
“Oh, Mother!” repeated Jess. “What a splendid chance!”
“Why, Josephine, not so very splendid,” said her mother, slowly. “He only guarantees me five dollars weekly. That is not much.”
“It will feed us—if we are careful,” gasped Jess.
“Goodness, Josephine! What a horribly practical child you are getting to be. I don’t know what the girls of to-day are coming to. Now, that would never have appealed to me when I was your age. I never knew how papa and mamma got food for us.”
Jess might have told her that conditions had not changed much since her girlhood!
“But five dollars regularly will help us a whole lot, Mother,” she urged.
“And it will necessitate my going out considerably—and appearing at receptions and places. Really—I have refused a number of invitations because of my wardrobe. My excuse of ‘work’ is not always strictly true,” sighed Mrs. Morse.
“But do, do try it, Mother!” cried Jess.
“Well,” said the lady, “it may do no harm. And it may be an opening for something better. But, really, nobody must know that I am a mere society reporter on the Centerport Courier.”
The girls of the Junior class in modern history were filing out on Friday.
“What do you know about that?” hissed Bobby Hargrew, in the ears of her chums. “Gee Gee is getting meaner and meaner every day she lives.”
“What did she do to you now?” demanded Dora Lockwood, one of the twins.
“Didn’t you notice? She sent Postscript to hunt up Moscow on the map of Russia. Now! you know very well that Moscow was burned in 1812!”
“You ridiculous child!” exclaimed Nellie Agnew. “You will never do anything in school but make jokes and try the patience of your teachers.”
“I am no friend to teachers, I admit,” confided Bobby to Dora and Dorothy. “Don’t you think they ought to be made to earn their money?”
“Any teacher who is so unfortunate as to have you in his, or her, class, is bound to earn all the salary coming to them,” declared Dorothy.
“Bad grammar—but you don’t know any better,” declared the harum-scarum. “You’re just as bad as Freddie Atkinson. Dimple asked him who compiled the dictionary, and Freddie said, ‘Daniel Webster.’
“‘No, sir! Noah!’ snapped Dimple.
“‘Oh, Professor!’ exclaimed Fred. ‘I thought Noah compiled the Ark?’”
As the girls were laughing over this story of Bobby Hargrew’s, Eve Sitz came up briskly. Laura and Jess were near at hand, and in a moment a group of the Juniors who always “trained together” were in animated discussion.
“Yes. It’s frozen hard. Otto was on it with a pair of horses and our pung,” declared Eve, who came in every morning from the country on the train, and whose father owned a big farm over beyond Robinson’s Woods.
“What’s frozen?” demanded Dora.
“Peveril Pond. It’s as smooth as glass. I want you to all come over on Saturday afternoon; we’ll have a lot of fun,” declared Eve.
“You’re always inviting us to the farm, Evangeline,” said Nellie Agnew; “I should think your father and mother would be tired of having us overrun the place.”
“Never you mind about them,” declared Evangeline, smiling. “They love to have young folks around. Now, remember! Saturday at noon the autos will start from the Beldings’ front door—if it doesn’t snow.”
“Oh, snow!” cried Bobby. “I hope not yet.”
“‘Beautiful snow! he may sing whom it suits—
I object to the stuff, ‘cause it soaks through my boots!’”
“It’s too bad,” said Jess, “that Mrs. Kerrick didn’t offer a prize for verse. Bobby would win it, sure!”
“Never you mind,” said Bobby, with mock solemnity. “I may surprise you all yet. I am capable of turning out tragic stuff—you bet your boots!”
“Mercy, Bobby! how slangy you are getting,” murmured Nell Agnew, the doctor’s daughter.
“You think I cannot be serious?” demanded Bobby, very gravely. “Listen here. Here is what I call ‘The Lay of the Last Minorca’—not the ‘Last Minstrel!’
“‘She laid the still white form beside those that had gone before,’” quoth Bobby, in sepulchral tone.
“‘No sob, no sigh, forced its way from her heart, throbbing as though it would burst.
“‘Suddenly a cry broke the stillness of the place—a single heartbreaking shriek, which seemed to well up from her very soul, as she left the place:
“‘“Cut, cut, cut-ah-out!”
“‘She would lay another egg to-morrow.’”
“You ridiculous girl!” exclaimed Laura. “Aren’t you ever serious at all?”
“My light manner hides a breaking hear-r-r-t,” croaked Bobby. “You don’t know me, Laura, as I really are!”
“Don’t want to,” declared Laura Belding, briskly. “It must be awful to be a humorist. All right, Eve. We’ll come on Saturday. Chet will see Mr. Purcell about the big car. Lake Luna is frozen only at the edges, and is unsafe. But we will have a good time at Peveril Pond.”
Fortunately Mrs. Morse received payment for a story in a magazine that week or Jess would never have had the heart to join the skating party. But the sum realized was sufficient to settle with Mr. Closewick, pay the month’s rent of the cottage, and pay a part of each bill at Mr. Heuffler’s and Mr. Vandergriff’s shops.
These payments left Jess and her mother almost as badly off as they were before. And there was the new account started at Mr. Hargrew’s. But Chet Belding urged Jess very strongly to be his guest on Saturday, and there was really no reason why Jess should not go. Her mother had seen Mr. Prentice and begun furnishing items to the Courier from day to day; and the girl felt that, with care, they might be able to keep from getting so deeply into debt again.
No snow had fallen up to Saturday noon; but it was cold, and the clouds threatened a feathery fall before many hours. The young folk who gathered in the big hall of the Belding house thought little of the cold, however. There were warm robes and blankets in the Belding auto and in the sightseeing machine that Mr. Purcell had sent. Chet, in his bearskin coat, looked like the original owner of the garment—especially when he pulled the goggles down from the visor of his cap, and prepared to go out to the car.
“My dear fellow,” drawled Prettyman Sweet, the dandy of Central High, who was of the party, “you look howwidly fewocious, doncher know! I wouldn’t dwess in such execrable taste for any sum you could mention—no, sir!”
“Beauty’s only skin deep, they say, Pretty,” responded Chet “So, if you were flayed, you might look quite human yourself.”
“Purt” was gorgeous in a Canadian skating suit—or so the tailor who sold it to him had called it. It was all crimson and white, with a fur-edged velvet cap that it really took courage to wear, and fur-topped boots. And his gloves! they were marvels. One of them lying on the floor of the Beldings’ hall gave Topsy, Mrs. Belding’s pet terrier, such a fright that she pretty nearly barked her head off.
She made so much noise that Lance grabbed at her and tried to put her out of the room, Topsy still barking furiously.
“You look out!” drawled Bobby Hargrew. “One end of that dog bites, Lance!”
They turned Purt around and around to get the beauties of his costume at every angle. And they “rigged” him sorely. But the exquisite was used to it; he would only have felt badly if they had ignored his new “get-up.”
“It’s quite the thing, I assure you,” he declared. “And, weally, one should pay some attention to the styles. You fellows, weally, dress in execrable taste.”
When the party was complete they bundled into their wraps again and piled into the machines. Mrs. Belding had retired to her own room until the “devastation of the barbarians,” as she called it, was past; but Mammy Jinny straightened up the hall and dining room after the young folk with great cheerfulness.
“Yo’ know how yo’ was yo’self, Miss Annie, w’en yo’ was oberflowin’ wid de sperits ob youth,” she said, soothingly.
“I am sure I never overflowed quite so boisterously,” sighed Mrs. Belding.
“No. Yo’ warn’t one ob de oberflowin’ kind, Miss Annie,” admitted the old black woman. “But Mars’ Chet an’ Miss Laura, and dem friends ob theirs, sartain sure kin kick up a mighty combobberation—yaas’m!”
The wintry wind blew sharply past the crowd of Central High Juniors as the Belding auto and the bigger machine struck a fast pace when once they had cleared the city. There was lots of fun in the autos on the way to the Sitz farm; but they were all glad to tumble out there and crowd into the big kitchen “for a warm.”
The Swiss family were the most hospitable people in the world. Eve’s mother had a great heap of hot cakes ready for them, and there was coffee, too, to drive out the cold.
“We’re going to take Patrick down to the pond with us to keep up the fires while we’re skating,” Eve told Laura. Eve looked very pretty in her skating rig, and she was a splendid skater, too. “Father and Otto are somewhere down in the woods already. This cold weather coming on marks the time for hog killing, and some of the porkers have been running in the woods, fattening on the mast. There is an old mother hog that has gotten quite wild, and has a litter of young ones with her that are hard to catch. They may have to shoot her. So if you hear a gun go off, don’t be alarmed.”
The hired man, who stayed with the Sitzes all the year around, was a comical genius and the boys knew him well. As they started on the walk to the pond, Chet asked him:
“Do you skate yourself, Pat?”
“Sure, and it’s an illegant skater I used to be when I was young,” declared Pat; “barrin’ that I niver had thim murderin’ knives on me feet, but used ter skate on a bit of board down Donnegan’s Hill.”
“He’ll never own up that he doesn’t know a thing,” whispered Eve to Laura and Jess, as the boys laughed over this statement of the Irishman. “He was planting potatoes in the upper field, and all by himself, last spring, and a man drove along the road, and stopped and asked him what kind of potatoes they were.
“‘Sure, I know,’ says Patrick.
“‘Then what kind are they?’ repeated the neighbor.
“‘Sure, they’re raw ones, Mr. Hurley,’ says he, and Hurley came to the house roaring with laughter over it. Nothing feazes Patrick.”
The long, sloping hill, under the chestnuts and oaks, would have made a splendid coasting place; only there was no snow on the ground.
“But when the snow does come,” cried Dora Lockwood, “if the pond is still frozen over, won’t it be a great course?”
“The ice is all right now, at any rate,” Eve reassured them. “And there isn’t a spring hole in the entire pond, Otto says.”
Patrick had brought an axe and, with the help of some of the boys, soon had a big bonfire burning on the edge of the pond. Meanwhile the other boys helped the girls with their skate-straps, and then got on their own skates.
The ice hadn’t a scratch on it. It was like a great plate of glass, and so clear in places that they could see to the bottom of the pond—where the bottom was sandy.
All the young folk were soon on the ice, the boys starting a hockey game at the far end, and the girls circling around in pairs at the end nearest to the fire.
“That’s what Mrs. Case, our physical instructor, says we ought to learn,” said Laura, watching the boys.
“And it’s jolly good fun, too,” cried Bobby.
“But suppose you turned your ankle, or fell down and tore your dress?” suggested Nellie. “I believe hockey on the ice is too rough.”
“No game needs to be rough,” declared Laura. “That isn’t the spirit of athletics. Didn’t we learn how to play basketball without being rough?”
“Even Hessie Grimes learned that,” chuckled Bobby.
At that moment a gun was fired back in the thicker woods, and then out of the brush the girls saw an animal charging directly for the pond. Patrick saw it, too, and leaped up from before the fire and ran toward the beast.
“It’s a big hog!” cried Bobby.
“That’s the one they want to catch,” said Eve. “She is ugly, too, I believe.” Then she raised her voice in warning to Patrick; “Look out, Patrick! She is real cross.”
“Faith!” returned the Irishman, half squatting down in the path of the charging sow. “It’s not afraid I be of the likes of a pig. ’Tis too many of their tails I’ve twisted in ould Ireland, to run from wan in Ameriky——”
Just then the animal spied him and went for Patrick, full tilt. There wasn’t time for the Irishman to dodge; but he did spread his legs, and the angry mother-hog ran between them.