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

“Why, she’ll spoil my play!”

“If she is not here to play her part she will certainly interfere sadly with the success of ‘The Spring Road,’” admitted Laura.

“Oh, oh! That mean, mean thing!” cried Jess, under her breath.

“She is taking her costumes to wear in the production of her own play, which she has renamed ‘The Lady of the Castle,’” said Laura. “She will make a lovely ‘Duchess of Doosenberry,’ as Bobby nicknamed it, in those robes, Jess.”

“Why, Laura, I believe you are not sympathetic,” cried Jess.

“Don’t you be afraid, dear. Miss Lily will not appear as ‘the talented young amateur, Greba Pendennis,’ if that is what she really intends to attempt. I have fixed that.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Jess. But just then the boys shouted to them and they had to hurry to take their places in the iceboat

“Chet,” said Laura, to her brother, as she settled herself aboard, “run down near the Pendleton sleigh if you can. I want to speak to Lil.”

“Just as you say, Sis,” returned her brother. “All ready? Let her go, Lance! We’ll show these girls some traveling, eh?”

The Blue Streak was off in a moment and the way she tore over the ice always gave the two girls, at first, a feeling as though a wreck were imminent. But in a minute or two the feeling subsided, and through the automobile goggles they both wore they dared look ahead.

On this cold afternoon there were not many sleighs or iceboats on the racing course between Centerport and Keyport. But suddenly Lance looked around, grinned through his mask, and waved his hand toward the shore. The girls immediately knew that he had sighted the Pendleton sleigh.

Laura turned to look at her brother, and he nodded at her reassuringly. Lance reduced the speed, and the Blue Streak began to move shoreward.

The girls could now see the sleigh plainly. The yellow box in which Lil carried her costumes was a splotch of color against the white fur robes. And there was Lil herself and the black figure of the little stage director.

The Blue Streak ran closer and of a sudden the young folks aboard the iceboat saw that something was amiss with the Pendletons’ horses. The dapple grays were fat, well fed beasts, and the coachman was old and rheumatic. Perhaps the appearance of another iceboat that had just passed the sleigh had startled the horses.

However that might be, old Mike was suddenly flung from his seat, and the horses charged down the lake at a gallop, swinging the sleigh behind them at a pace that threatened to overturn it at any moment!

The four friends on the aero-iceboat could hear Lil scream. And up sprang the little black figure of Pizotti, alias Plornish, and the next moment he had leaped to the ice!

The horses tore on, and Lil was really in peril. But Chet guided the Blue Streak right down to the runaway, coming so close that Lance Darby was able to leap into the driver’s seat from the running iceboat.

It was a feat that called for agility and coolness; but the boy did it bravely. The next moment he was out on the tongue, had recovered the trailing lines, and the dapple grays were soon brought to an abrupt stop.

CHAPTER XXIV – THE GREAT NIGHT

The event had certainly come to a startling climax. Even Lily herself, writing a dozen “Duchess of Dawnleighs,” could not have imagined quite so serious a situation to balk the determination of her created heroines, as here had arrived to balk herself!

“Well, Lil,” Laura said to her, as the girl got out of the sleigh. “I guess you won’t run away to-day and leave us all in a fix – and spoil Jess’s play. What do you think?”

“Oh, Laura! is poor Mike hurt?” cried the girl, and from that moment Laura thought better of her. For Lil showed she was not entirely heartless. She had thought first of the old coachman who had served her family for so many years, and who was even then probably helping her to get to Keyport and the expected performance of “The Duchess of Dawnleigh,” against his own good sense.

“Here he comes, limping,” said Laura, rather brusquely. “He’s not dead. But how about Plornish?”

“Plornish?” returned Lil, puzzled.

“Pizotti, then, if you prefer his stage name.”

“Is – isn’t Pizotti his name?” demanded Lil, still struggling with her tears.

“His real name is Abel Plornish,” said Laura, bluntly. She saw no use in “letting Lily down easy.” “He has a wife and seven children living down on Governor Street, in a miserable tenement. He neglects them a good deal, I believe. But this time, if he had made what he expected to out of you – By the way, Lil, what were you going to pay him?”

“I – I – For putting me on the stage with his company?” she stammered.

“Is that the way he put it? Well, yes,” said Laura. “It’s the same thing. He was going to star you in your own play, was he?”

“Ye – es,” sobbed Lily. “And now it’s all spoiled! And I was going to take all the money I pawned grandmother’s jewels for – ”

“Goodness me! How much?” snapped Laura.

“Five hundred dollars.”

“Has he got the cash?”

“No,” sobbed Lil.

“All right, then. No harm done. I went to Mr. Monterey and he found out that Plornish had got together no company at all. You were the only person who had learned a part in your play, I guess, Lily. Ah! Chet’s got him.”

Indeed, Chet had stopped the aero-iceboat and run back to the prostrate stage director. Plornish had a broken leg and had to be lifted by both boys into the Pendleton sleigh. Old Michael could manage the horses again and turned them about. Laura elected to go back to Centerport with the injured man and the very-much-disturbed Lily Pendleton.

“Now, just see the sort of a man this fellow is,” said Laura, paying no attention to the groanings of Plornish, “He was intending to get the money from you at Keyport and then disappear. All he spent was merely for the bills put up advertising the show – the show which he never intended would come off, Lil! And you were going down there and leaving us all in the lurch!”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” groaned Lil.

“I hope so. Sorry enough to go home and rest and prepare to play your part in ‘The Spring Road’ to-night,” spoke Laura, tartly.

“Oh, dear me! how can I?” cried the girl.

“If you don’t,” said Laura, frankly, “I won’t keep this affair a secret. You will be the laughing stock of all Central High. I am not going to allow Jess Morse’s play to be spoiled because of you. If you were so jealous and envious that you did not want to see Jess’s play succeed, you could have refused, at least, to be cast for an important part in it. And now,” went on Mother Wit, firmly, “you are going to play that part.”

“Oh, Laura! you are so harsh,” sobbed Lily.

“Much that will hurt you!” sniffed Laura. “We’ll drive around by the hospital and leave this Plornish man. If he dares to open his mouth, we’ll have him punished for trying to swindle you,” and Laura looked sternly at the black-eyed, foreign-looking fellow.

“You see, we know all about you, Mr. Plornish, and you will have to abide by what is done for you. Some of us will help your family while you are helpless. But you’ve got to be good, or even Mr. Vandergriff will forget that you and he used to be boys together. Pah! with your hair dye, and paint and powder, and all! Why, you are nearly fifty years old, so Mr. Vandergriff says, and you act and dress like a silly boy.”

Lily listened to all this, and stopped sobbing. She began to see that there was a chance for her to escape being a butt for her school-fellows’ jokes.

“Can – can you keep Jess and the boys from talking?” she whispered to Laura.

“They’ll be like oysters if I tell them to,” declared Mother Wit.

“Oh, then, I’ll do my best,” agreed the foolish girl. Possibly she was deeply impressed by her escape.

Mother Wit’s plans were carried out to the letter. Plornish was deposited at the hospital, where he would remain for some weeks. The performance of Jess’s play would have to get along without him on this opening night.

And when the hour for the performance arrived, Lily Pendleton was ready, her tears wiped away, glorious in one of her costumes, and “preening like a peacock” – to quote Bobby Hargrew – before one of the long mirrors in the dressing room.