The Girls of Central High on the Stage: or, The Play That Took The Prize

“Oh, I’ve had it out and felt behind it,” urged Miss Carrington, all of a flutter now.

“Maybe Miss Belding can show us something we did not know,” said the principal, in his bantering way. It had been he who gave Laura her nickname, and he thought a great deal of the girl. He knew that she had some serious intention or she would not have come forward.

Laura pulled out the over-full drawer and set it down upon the carpet.

“Oh, it isn’t there,” said Miss Carrington. “The packet was tied with a mauve ribbon – a narrow ribbon – ”

Laura pulled out the next drawer.

“Oh, that’s quite useless,” exclaimed the lady teacher. “And to have everything disarranged in this way – ”

“We must give the counsel for the defense every opportunity, Miss Carrington,” said the principal softly.

Laura drew out the third drawer – just glancing at the top layer of papers – and then the fourth and last. No bundle tied with a mauve ribbon appeared.

“Not there!” exclaimed Gee Gee, and was there a spice of satisfaction in her voice?

But Laura dropped upon her knees, ran her arm to the shoulder into the aperture where the last drawer came out, and drew forth the missing packet of papers, which lay crowded back upon the carpet.

“There!” said Mr. Sharp, quite in a matter-of-fact tone, “I have suggested to the Board of Education more than once that all these old unsanitary desks should be done away with. The only roll-top desk fit to use in the schools are those which stand upon feet, the bottom of the lower drawer being a few inches from the floor. Thank you, Miss Belding! We will now go on with the afternoon session.”

But he rested his hand for a moment upon Laura’s shoulder, as she was about to step down after returning the drawers to their places in the desk.

“The counsel for the defense did very well,” he whispered, and then left the room as quietly as he had entered it.

Mr. Sharp had relieved Miss Carrington of the embarrassment of his presence; but she certainly was troubled by the untoward incident. Laura returned to her seat by the way of Jess’s and boldly squeezed her hand. And Jess thanked her, in her heart. The rebound from being suspected of the loss of the papers gave her such relief that the coming examination seemed much less terrible. Or perhaps, Miss Carrington was, after all, a little easy on her that afternoon; for Jess Morse came through the grilling with surprisingly high marks.

CHAPTER XIII – A WAY IS OPENED

But Jess had had ample warning. There would be something important heard from Gee Gee if she neglected the regular work of her classes to devote time and thought to that wonderful play.

It was hard to keep her mind off a task that had so gripped her heart and mind. “The Spring Road” was in her thought almost continually. She even dreamed about it at night. And it was a veritable wrench to get her mind off the idyl of youth she was writing to set it upon the grim realities of Latin, English, the higher mathematics, and other school tasks.

It seemed to Jess Morse as though no other piece of writing could ever be so enthralling as this she had undertaken. When she had begun it it was with fear and trembling. The two hundred dollar prize was what spurred her to the task. But now, she fairly loved it!

“The Spring Road” was a fantasy – a comedy – a love story; it was all three in one, and she was writing it with the limitations of those who would probably play it, in mind.

Many of the contestants for Mrs. Kerrick’s prize thought not at all about the players; but already in Jess’s mind was fixed who, of her schoolmates, would best fit into the parts. There was a character who could not gain much sympathy from the audience, but who could wear beautiful clothes – that would just suit Lily Pendleton.

And for the Spring Spirits, in the allegory, Budding Tree and Laughing Brook, who could be better fitted than Dora and Dorothy Lockwood? While the heroine of the story must be beautiful Kate Protest, of the Senior class, and the Truant Lover the sparkling Launcelot Darby.

At home matters were not going as smoothly as Jess had hoped, after her mother obtained regular work upon the Centerport Courier. It was nice to get the money regularly for that work; but somehow Mrs. Morse could not see the wisdom of “paying as you go.” Jess could not always take cash with her when she went to the stores; and if her mother chanced to be out herself and saw something particularly nice that Jess was likely to fancy, she ordered it in without regard to how it was to be paid for.

But that had always been Mrs. Morse’s way. She was over-generous with Jess while she, herself, went with shabby gloves and mended shoes. But any sensible plan of retrenchment in their household expenses had never been evolved in her mind.

How they were to meet the added burden of the January rent never seemed to trouble her. Jess only spoke of it once during that first fortnight in December; then it disturbed her mother so much that the lamp of genius refused to burn for a whole day, and, with a sigh, the girl gave over discussing the point.

Checks for her mother’s stories came few and far between these days, Jess feared that they would soon owe Mr. Hargrew as large a bill as they had at Mr. Closewick’s store. And as for a new dress – well, the idea of that was as far in the offing as ever.

All the girls she knew well were so busy scribbling away at their prize plays that, had Jess been free herself out of school hours, she would have been unable to find any of her usual companions at leisure.

Even Chet Belding, who was always at her beck and call, was terribly busy these days. He and Lance Darby were hard at work upon some wonderful sort of ice craft they were building down in Monson’s old boathouse, near the Girls’ Branch Athletic League field and boathouse.

Each day saw the wintry winds grow colder, and soon the ice upon Lake Luna was thick enough to bear. Some of the more reckless boys had skated out to the steamboat channel, which had been sawed from the open water in the middle of the lake, so that the freight boats from Lumberport and Keyport could get to their docks.

Ice of such thickness on Lake Luna at this early date, however, surprised even that apocryphal person, “the oldest inhabitant.” And Jess Morse would have been glad of a new coat, or the set of furs that her mother had talked about. When she started for school some mornings, the first blast of keen air off the lake seemed to cut through her like a knife. She wouldn’t have had her mother know how really thin her apparel seemed for anything in the world.

And, very wisely, she kept up her gym. work faithfully. A few minutes’ vigorous exercise after the regular day’s work at school was finished put her in a glow, made her breathe more deeply and “put a shine in her eyes,” as Bobby expressed it.

“There isn’t a girl in the class who doesn’t need brisking up in the gym. this weather – unless it’s Eve Sitz,” confided Bobby to Laura and Jess as they left the gymnasium building together one afternoon. “Girls are just like cats; they all like to mope around the register or the steam radiator in cold weather. Why, Lil Pendleton wears a lace shawl over her shoulders in the house, and hangs over the gas-log like an old woman. We all ought to get back into basketball – and at the rowing machines – again. Once a week on the court isn’t enough to keep us alive.”

“If you knew the number of things Eve Sitz does, in and out of doors, before she comes to school in the morning, and after she gets home again, you wouldn’t wonder that she keeps her color, and is so brisk and strong,” laughed Laura.

“I expect she is a busy little bee,” admitted Bobby.

“She helps milk the cows night and morning – ”

“There!” interrupted the irrepressible Bobby. “That’s what I’ve always intended to ask Eve; but I forget it.”

“What’s that?” asked Jess.

“Why, when you have finished milking a cow, how do you turn the milk off?”

“Isn’t she the ridiculous girl?” chuckled Laura, as Bobby ran up the side street toward her own door. Then Mother Wit turned on her chum, with her brisk, bird-like way: “How’s the play going, Jess?”

“I’m – I’m afraid it’s finished,” said her chum, slowly.

“‘Afraid!’” repeated Laura, in amazement.

“Yes. As far as I can finish it.”

“But you’re not going to give it up in the middle?” cried Laura.

“No. It is complete. Only it doesn’t satisfy me,” returned Jess, shaking her head. “And it never will.”

“Ah! there speaks real genius!” declared Laura, smiling.

“Don’t you believe it,” was her friend’s hasty reply. “I just don’t know enough to write it well enough to suit me.”

“Modesty!”

“Sense,” corrected Jess, laughing a little dolefully. “How are you getting along?”

“Just as Mr. Sharp said, I am no female Shakespeare,” said Laura. “But I have hopes that maybe my play isn’t so bad.”

Jess was not sanguine about “The Spring Road,” however. She knew that it might be written so much better, if one only knew how!

And while they discussed the play Jess heard somebody calling her by name. Laura grabbed her arm and pointed.