The Girls of Central High on the Stage/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
IT ALL COMES OUT
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 ice-boat"—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?"
"About the prize."
"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. Vandegriff'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.