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

“Isn’t that Mrs. Prentice – the very rich Mrs. Prentice – in her electric runabout? And, I declare, Jess! she’s calling to you.”

“Yes. I know her; she wants me,” said Jess breathlessly, and she ran across the street to where the electric car was standing beside the curb.

“I want you, child,” said the lady, with decision. “Can you excuse yourself to your friend?”

Jess waved her hand to Laura, and called:

“I’ll be up after supper, dear.”

Laura nodded, and smiled, and went on; but she was evidently puzzled as she turned to gaze after the runabout as it moved off swiftly with her chum beside the lady in the magnificent furs.

“And how are you and your mother getting along?” asked Mrs. Prentice, as soon as the car had started.

“Why – why about as usual, Mrs. Prentice,” stammered Jess, who was much puzzled as to why the lady should want her to take this ride. “Only mother is regularly employed by Mr. Prentice, and is very grateful for the work – as you must know, ma’am.”

“Oh, don’t speak of that,” said Mrs. Prentice, laughing. “I fancy that Pat is getting full measure for his money; he usually does. But tell me, child, are you going to remain in that cottage of Mr. Chumley’s?”

“Why – I really don’t know, Mrs. Prentice. There seems no other place to go – ”

“He is horribly overcharging you, child,” said the lady, quickly.

“I know. But there are so few small places in decent neighborhoods – mother says she doesn’t know what to do about it.”

“I fancy, Jessica – Is that your name?”

“Josephine, Mrs. Prentice; only they all call me Jess.”

“Very well – Jess. Sounds a good practical name – and you are a practical girl; I can see that. Now, Jess, I fancy you have to do something yourself toward moving, to get your mother started, eh?”

“Oh! but I don’t know where to go – ”

The car began to slow down. Mrs. Prentice had run into a quiet side street, not two blocks from the cottage at the foot of Whiffle Street.

“See here,” said the lady, stopping the motor and preparing to alight. “I want you to see this little dove-cote – that’s what I have always called it. It is set behind a grassy front yard and there is a little garden at the back. You’ll love it in spring and summer.”

“Oh, but Mrs. Prentice, is it empty?”

“It’s too empty. That’s the trouble. The tenant I had left unexpectedly.” She neglected to say that she had paid the tenant a certain sum to leave the cottage and move into another house. “I don’t want the house empty during the cold weather. I have paid to have a fire kept up in the furnace for a week so that the pipes would not freeze. Come in.”

It was a dear little cottage; Jess Morse was delighted with it. And so much more convenient than Mr. Chumley’s. Besides, there was a good reason why the owner paid to have the fires kept up all this week of cold weather. Every room was fresh with paint and paper – the smell of varnish was still plain. It was really a delightful little place and the furniture at home would fit into the several rooms so nicely!

Jess Morse saw all this at once. She was delighted – And two dollars less a month than the cottage in which they had lived so long!

“It is a way opened, Mrs. Prentice!” she murmured. “Better than we could ever expect. I thank you from the very bottom of my heart!”

CHAPTER XIV – IN SUSPENSE

But when Jess got home – and Mrs. Prentice took her there in the car, but would not come in herself – she had hard work to satisfy her mother that such a change as this opportunity suggested was a good one for them to make. In short, Mrs. Morse did not enthuse.

“Just think of the trouble of it all,” she sighed. “My dear Jess, we have been here so long – ”

“But Mr. Chumley doesn’t want us any longer,” interposed Jess.

“Tut, tut! that is only the old gentleman’s way. He really will not raise our rent, do you think?”

“Why, Mother!” expostulated the girl, “he has already raised it and threatened to put us out if we don’t find the increased three dollars on the first.”

“I am afraid you were not politic enough,” said her mother.

“One cannot be politic with Mr. Chumley. He wants his house for another tenant; he has as good as said so. And do come and see Mrs. Prentice’s little cottage. It is a love.”

Even after she had seen it, however, Mrs. Morse was doubtful. She shrank from the change.

“And think of the expense of moving,” she declared.

“But the two dollars less we pay a month will soon pay for that,” said Jess, eagerly.

“Well – er – perhaps,” admitted her mother, doubtfully.

Jess had to do it all, however. She had to attend to every detail of the change. Fortunately her mother received a check of some size and the daughter obtained a part of it for current expenses. She hired a truckman, packed most of their possessions after school hours, and saw to the setting up of their goods and chattels in the new home.

There were several tons of furnace coal in the cellar of the new home. In the old cottage there had been no heater. Mrs. Prentice told Jess that she could pay for the coal a little at a time, and the girl gladly availed herself of this advantage.

For the winter promised to be a severe one. Since frost had set in in earnest there had been no let-up. Jess and her mother moved during 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. The property don’t bring me enough as it is.”

“Then there’s no use talking to us,” said Jess, drawing her arm through her mother’s. “Mrs. Prentice’s house is all freshly done over, and has a heater, which this house hasn’t, and everything is in spick and span order.”

“That Mrs. Prentice! I might ha’ knowed it!” cackled Mr. Chumley. “And she was for having you arrested for stealing once.”

This was the very first Mrs. Morse had heard about the night Jess had had her queer experience, and she had to be told all about it now. She saw at once that her own regular work for the Courier arose out of her daughter’s acquaintance with the wealthy Mrs. Prentice.

“And she is one of the leaders in our Hill society!” gasped the poor lady. “I declare! I shall never be able to face her again – although I have only a bowing acquaintance with her. She will very well know who is putting all the society items into the paper.”

“Well, it’s honest,” said Jess, stubbornly.

“My goodness me! How practical you are, Jess,” exclaimed her mother. “Isn’t anything but bread-and-butter, and such things, appealing to you in life, child?”