the short holiday vacation. The day school closed; the contestants for the prize offered by Mrs. Kerrick handed in their plays. The announcement of the successful one would be after the intermission—on the first Monday of the New Year.
When the Morses really came to remove their goods from the house in which they had lived so long, old Mr. Chumley would have liked to get out an injunction against their doing so.
"I never thought you'd do it, Widder!" he croaked, having hurried over the minute he heard the moving man was at the door. "Why—why mebbe we could have split the difference. P'r'aps three dollars a month more was a leetle steep."
"Oh, dear me!" sighed Mrs. Morse. "Really, Mr. Chumley, this is Jess's doings. She thinks the change will be better for us"
"Now then! I wouldn't let no young'un snap me like I was the end of a whip!" cried the old man. "You bundle your things back into the house, and we'll call it only a one-fifty raise."
But here Jess interfered. "Are you prepared to take two dollars off the rent, instead of adding any, and will you make the repairs we have been asking for all this year, Mr. Chumley?" she demanded, briskly.
"My goodness me! I can't. It ain't possible.
