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

CHAPTER VII – THE HAND HELD OUT

When Jess came out of the house there was a group of her schoolmates – and not all of them boys – at the foot of the Whiffle Street hill. Being towed by Chet’s big kite had became a game that all hands wanted to try. But the sun was getting warmer and the icy street would soon be slushy and the skates would cut through.

“I’ve had enough,” said Bobby Hargrew, removing her skates when she spied Jess. “The policeman has warned us once, and he’ll be mad next time he comes around if we’re here still.”

“Better get your skates, Jess, and try it just once,” urged Chet Belding, who was very partial to his sister’s closet chum.

“I can’t, Chet,” replied Jess. “I must do my Saturday’s marketing.”

“Hullo! here’s Short and Long!” cried Bobby, as a very short boy with very brisk legs came sliding down the hill with a big bundle under his arm.

Billy Long was an industrious youngster who only allowed himself leisure to keep up in athletics after school hours, because he liked to earn something toward his family’s support.

“Stop and try a ride, Billy,” urged Lance Darby, holding the cord of the tugging kite.

“Can’t. Going on an errand.”

“Hey, Billy! how’s your dyspepsia?” demanded another of the boys.

Billy grinned. Bobby exclaimed:

“Now, don’t tell me that Short and Long ever has trouble with his digestion – I won’t believe it!”

“He sure had a bad case of it yesterday,” drawled Chet Belding. “At least, so Mr. Sharp said. Billy spelled it with an ‘i’.”

“Let me use your knife a minute, please?” asked Bobby, who was still struggling with a refractory strap. “No! just toss it to me.”

“That’s all right,” returned the small boy, with a grin, as he walked over and carefully handed Bobby the knife. “I don’t take any chances with girls in throwing, or catching. All my sister can do is to throw a fit, or catch a cold!”

“Ow! isn’t that a wicked statement?” cried Bobby. “You know it isn’t so. But you’re right down ignorant, Billy. You’re just as bad as Postscript was in Gee Gee’s class one day this week.”

“Who’s ‘Postscript’?” demanded Lance. “That’s a new one on me.”

“Why,” said Bobby, her black eyes twinkling, “I mean Adeline Moore. That’s a postscript, isn’t it?”

“What happened to Addie?” asked Jess, as the others laughed.

“Why, she got befuddled in reciting something about an Indian uprising that came in our American History hour. It’s all review stuff, you know.

“‘What is it that you call an Indian woman, Adeline?’ Gee Gee asked, real sharp.

“And Addie jumped, and stammered, and finally said:

“‘A squaw, please, Miss Carrington.’

“‘And what do you call her baby, then?’ snapped Gee Gee.

“‘A – a squawker,’ says Addie, and the poor thing got a black mark for it. Wasn’t that mean?”

“Miss Grace G. Carrington was in one of her moods,” observed Chet, when the laugh had subsided.

“She’s subject to moods,” Lance drawled.

“No, she’s not!” cried Bobby Hargrew. “She only had one mood – the imperative – and we girls are all subject to that,” and she sighed, for Bobby was frequently in trouble with the very strict assistant principal of Central High whom she disrespectfully referred to as “Gee Gee.”

Jess and her friend had left the others now and were approaching Market Street. Like everybody else on the walks, they had to be careful how they stepped, and it was with many a laugh and gibe that Bobby Hargrew beguiled the way. Jess, however, was serious once more.

“Are you really going in for that prize Mrs. Kerrick is going to put up for us?” demanded Bobby.

“Do you know what it’s for?”

“No – I haven’t heard that,” said the younger girl. “But for two hundred dollars I’d learn tatting – or darn socks. Daddy says I ought to learn to darn his. What’s it all about, anyway? I suppose Laura knows?”

“Yes. It’s a play. The girl who writes the best one, that can be acted by us boys and girls of Central High, is to get the prize.”

“Gee! won’t that be nuts for Miss Gould?” cried Bobby. “You know, she tried us out in blank verse the other day, and I made a hit. My stately lines were spoken of with commendation. And when she told us to bring in a rhyme, or poetry – whichever we had the courage to call it – I wanted to read mine out loud. But she wouldn’t let me. She said she had not intended to start a school for humorous poets.”

“What did you hand in?” asked Jess, smiling.

“Want to hear it?” cried Bobby, eagerly, digging into her pocket which – like a boy’s – was always filled with a conglomeration of articles. “Listen here!” she added, drawing forth a crumpled paper. “This is called ‘Such is Life’ and really, I was hurt that Miss Gould considered it so lightly,” and she began to read at once:

 
“‘William Wright was often wrong
And Thomas Goode was bad;
While Griffith Smiley, odd to state,
Was almost always sad.
Jedediah Rich was very poor,
While Ozias Poor was rich,
And Eliphalet Q. Carpenter
Earned his living digging ditch.
Tom White was black Jim Black was white,
And Jose Manuel Green was brown;
While Ching Ling Blu was yellow,
As was known all over town!’
 

“I’d have made more of it,” added Bobby, “only Miss Gould didn’t seem to care for that kind of poetry. And I suppose if I tried my hand at a play that I would be unable to hit the popular taste,” and she sighed.

“I guess they won’t demand verse from us in this play,” giggled Jess. “And that is most atrocious, Bobby.”

“Think so?” returned her friend, her eyes twinkling. “And you’ll do a whole lot better when it comes to writing your own play, I s’pose?”

“It won’t be in verse – blank, or otherwise,” admitted Jess.

“You really are going to try for it?”

“Why, Bobby, I’d love to win that two hundred dollars. I don’t suppose I can. All the girls will try, I expect, and Laura, or Nell Agnew, will get it. But I want that two hundred dollars worse than I ever wanted anything in my life!”

She spoke so earnestly that Bobby was impressed. The latter glanced at her sidewise and a shrewd little smile hovered about her lips for a moment, which Jess did not observe.

“Where are you bound for, Jess?” she asked abruptly.

“Marketing.”

“You trade at Heuffler’s market, don’t you? That’s right around the corner from father’s store. Why don’t you ever patronize our place for groceries. I’m drumming up trade,” said Bobby, grinning.

“I guess our trade wouldn’t amount to much,” said Jess, flushing a little.

“‘Every little bit added to what you’ve got makes just a little bit more,’” quoted Bobby. “And let me tell you, Mr. Thomas Hargrew keeps first-class goods and only asks a fair profit.”

Jess laughed; but she caught at the straw held out to her, too. She knew it would be useless to go to Mr. Closewick’s, where they usually traded. Was it honest to try and obtain credit at another grocery?

“I am afraid your father wouldn’t welcome me as a customer,” said Jess, gravely. “Ours isn’t always a cash trade. Mother’s money comes so very irregular that we have to run a bill at the grocery and the market and other places.”

“Come on and give us a sample order,” urged Bobby. “Father will be glad to get another book account. Now, if you were running a store I’d patronize it! We Central High girls ought to work together – just like a lodge. Come on.”

She fairly dragged Jess by the hand into the store on Market Street, over the door of which Mr. Hargrew’s name was displayed. The clerks were busy at the moment, but Mr. Hargrew was at his desk in the corner. Bobby ran to him and whispered quickly:

“Here she is, Father. You remember what that Mrs. Brown said last night about old Closewick refusing her credit after her mother had traded there so long. And I am sure Jess is in trouble and needs help. Do wait on her, Father.”

“If you say so, Bob,” returned the big man, smiling down upon the girl who, he often said, “was as good as any boy.” “You’ll have to come into this store and share the business when you get older; and you might as well learn to judge customers now. And, if they need help – ”

He came out to Jess Morse immediately, smiling and bowing like the suave storekeeper he was.

“Glad to see you, Miss, What can we do for you this morning?”

“Why – why,” stammered Jess, “Bobby urged me to come in; but, really, Mr. Hargrew, it seems like asking a big favor of you, for we have never traded here much.”

“We are always glad to make a new connection,” said the storekeeper,

“But mother – we are obliged to ask for credit – ”

“And that is what I have to do very frequently myself,” interposed Mr. Hargrew, still smiling. “What is it you wish, Miss Morse? Your credit is good here, I assure you. You have brought the very best of references – my daughter’s. Now, what is the first article?”

Jess could have cried with relief! Somehow she felt that Bobby and her father must know of her need, yet not a word or sign from either betrayed that fact. And one would scarcely suspect harum-scarum Bobby Hargrew of engineering such a delicate bit of business.

Nevertheless, Jess was vastly encouraged by this incident. She went into the meat shop and purchased a small piece of lamb for over Sunday and Mr. Heuffler did not ask her for his bill. She hoped that “something would turn up” and watched the mails very eagerly, hoping that a fugitive check might come. But the postman never came near the little cottage at the elbow in Whiffle Street, all that day.

CHAPTER VIII – THE RACE IS ON

There was a rustle of expectancy – upon the girls’ side, at least – at Assembly on Monday morning. Rumors of the prize offered for the best play written by a girl of Central High had aroused great interest and the school eagerly awaited Mr. Sharp’s brief remarks regarding it.

“It is not our wish,” said the principal, in the course of his speech, “to restrict the contestants in their choice of subjects, or in methods of treatment. The play may be pure comedy, comedy-drama, tragedy – even farce – or melodrama. Miss Gould will confine her lectures this week in English to the discussion of plays and play-making. Candidates for fame – and for Mrs. Kerrick’s very handsome prize – may learn much if they will faithfully attend Miss Gould’s classes. And, of course, it is understood that there must be no neglect of the regular school work by those striving for the laurel of the playwright.

“I doubt if we have any budding female Shakespeares among us, yet I realize that the youthful mind naturally slants towards tragedy and the redundant phrases of the Greek and Latin masters, as read in their translation; but let me advise all you young ladies who wish to compete for the prize, to select a simple subject and treat it simply.

“Have your play display human nature as you know it, and realism without morbidness.”

The girls of Central High who had heretofore excelled in composition naturally were looked upon as favorites in this race for dramatic honors. Among the Juniors, Laura Belding and Nellie Agnew always received high marks for such work. They possessed the knack of composition and were what Bobby Hargrew called “fluid writers.”

“If it was a jingle or limerick, I’d stand a chance,” sighed Bobby to herself. “But think of the sustained effort of writing a whole play! Gee! two hours and a half long. It would break my heart to sit still long enough to do it.”

Jess Morse had never tried to more than pass in English composition. For the very reason, perhaps, that she had seen the practical side of such a career at home, she had not, like so many girls of her age, contemplated seriously literary employment for herself.

Lily Pendleton was known to have once essayed an erotic novel, and had read a few chapters to some of her closer friends. Bobby said it should have been written on yellow paper with an asbestos pad under it to save scorching Miss Pendleton’s desk. Of course, Lily would attempt a play in the most romantic style.

The boys began to hatch practical jokes anent the play-writing before the week was out; and one afternoon Chet Belding appeared in a group of his sister’s friends, and with serious face declared he had with him the outline and introductory scene of Laura’s play, its caption being:

“The Poisoned Bathing-Suit; or, The Summer Boarder’s Revenge.”

Some of the girls – and not alone the Juniors like Laura, Nellie and Jess – were very serious about this matter of the play. Mrs. Kerrick’s prize spurred every girl who had the least ability in that direction to begin writing a dramatic piece. Some, of course, did not get far; but the main topic of discussion out of school hours among the girls of Central High was the play and the prize.

Jess talked it over with her mother, and Mrs. Morse grew highly excited.

“Why, Josephine, dear, if you could win that prize it would be splendid! Then you could have a new party dress – and a really nice one – and the furs I have been hoping to buy you for two seasons. Dear, dear! what a lot of things you really could get for that sum.”

“I guess it would help us out a whole lot,” admitted the girl “We need so many things – ”

“Why, I shouldn’t allow you to use a cent of it for the household – or for me,” cried her mother. “No, indeed.”

“I haven’t won it yet,” sighed Jess. “But I guess if I did win it you’d have to take a part of it, Mother.”

“Nonsense, child!” cried Mrs. Morse. “We’ll have some checks in shortly. And we sha’n’t starve meanwhile. Now, let us look over this plot you have evolved and perhaps I can suggest some helpful points – and show you how to write brisk dialogue. That is something the editors always praise me for – although I have never dared try a play myself. It is so hard to get a hearing before a really responsible manager.”

Outside help for the girls was not debarred by the terms of the contest, so long as the main thread of plot in each play was original with the author, and she actually did the work. Jess listened to the practical suggestions of her mother in relation to her play; but all the time she had upon her mind, too, the domestic difficulties that seemed to have culminated just now in a single great billow of trouble.

No money had come in. She had been obliged to go once more to Mr. Hargrew for groceries, and to the meat store and to Mr. Vandergriff’s. Her mother could talk in her cheerful manner about what she could do with the two hundred dollar prize if she earned it. But Jess was very sure that she would not spend it for personal adornment – although no girl at Central High loved to be dressed in the mode more than Jess Morse.

“If such a darling thing should happen as my winning the prize, I’d put it all in the bank for a nest-egg,” she thought. “Then, when checks do not come in, we would not have to ask for credit. We’d pay up all debts and start square with the world. And then – and then I’d be perfectly happy!”

The first of the month arrived, and with it Mr. Chumley. Mrs. Morse was busy at her desk and said:

“Just tell him, Josephine, that we will have it shortly. He needn’t come again. I’ll let you take it around to his house to him when I get it.”

But this did not suit the old man, and he pushed his way, for once, into the presence of the literary lady.

“Now, see here! Now, see here!” he cackled. “This won’t do at all, Widder – this won’t do at all! I want my money, and I want it prompt. And if you can’t pay your present rent prompt, how do you expect to pay it next month, when you must find three dollars more? Now, tell me that, Ma’am?”

“Really, Mr. Chumley! You are too bad,” complained Mrs. Morse. “I am so hard at work. You quite drive the ideas out of my head. I – I don’t know what train of thought I was following.”

Mr. Chumley snorted. “You’d better be huntin’ the advertisement columns of a newspaper for a job, Widder,” he said. “Them ‘trains of thought’ of yours won’t never carry you nowhere. I gotter have my money. How are you going to get it?”

“I have never failed to pay you heretofore, have I?” asked the lady, bringing out her handkerchief now. “I think this is too bad – ”

“But I want money!”

“And you shall have it, I have considerable owing to me – oh, yes! a good deal more than sufficient to pay your rent, Mr. Chumley. You will get it.”

That was a very unsatisfactory interview for the landlord, and particularly so for Mrs. Morse. She complained when he had gone to Jess:

“Now, my day is just spoiled. I’m all at loose ends. It will cost me a day’s work. Really, Josephine, if only people wouldn’t nag me so for money!”

And Jess strove to shield her all that she could from such interviews. Mrs. Morse needed to live alone in a world with her brain-children. Meanwhile her flesh-and-blood child had to fight her battles with the landlord and tradesmen.

It was amid such sordid troubles that Jess evolved the idea for her play. The butterfly is born of the ugly chrysalis; out of this unlovely environment grew a pretty, idyllic comedy which, although crude in spots, and lacking the professional touch which makes a dramatic piece “easy acting,” really showed such promise that Mrs. Morse acclaimed its value loudly.

“Oh, Mother! don’t praise me so much,” begged Jess. “The theme is good, I know. But it scares me. How can I ever dress it up to make it sound like a real play? It sounds so jerky and imperfect – that part that I have written, I mean.”

“There is something a dramatic critic told me once that may be true,” replied her mother. “It was that the piece which reads smoothly seldom acts well; whereas a play that ‘gets over the footlights’ usually reads poorly. You see, action cannot be read aloud; and it is the action that accompanies the words of a dramatic piece that makes those words tell.

“I am not sure that Mr. Sharp and his committee will consider your play the best written, from a literary standpoint; but I understand that they have invited Mr. Monterey, the manager of the Centerport Opera House, to read the plays, too. And you, Josephine, write for him; for they will depend upon his judgment in the choice of the acting qualities of the piece.”

This was good advice, as Jess very well knew. And she could barely keep her mind sufficiently upon her school work to pass the eagle scrutiny of Miss Grace G. Carrington, so wrapped up was she in the play. Not even to Laura did she confide any facts regarding the piece. Some of the girls openly discussed what they had done, and what they hoped; but Jess kept still.

Thursday came and in her mother’s morning mail was a letter with the card of the Centerport Courier in the corner.

“Now, what can that be?” drawled Mrs. Morse, when Jess eagerly brought it to her. “They buy no fugitive matter, and I haven’t sent them anything since having my interview with Mr. Prentice. I really would have been happier to see a letter like that from one of the New York magazines; it might have contained a check in that case,” and she slowly slit the envelope.

But Jess waited in the background with suppressed eagerness in her face and attitude. At once her thought had leaped to Mrs. Prentice. She had not told her mother a word about that lady’s visit on Friday evening, nor her errand to the house. But if Mrs. Prentice was really “the power behind the throne” in the Courier office, she might easily put some regular work in the way of Mrs. Morse.

“Listen to this, child!” exclaimed her mother, having glanced hastily through the letter. “Perhaps I had better take this – for a time, at least. I don’t like the idea of being tied down – it might interfere with my magazine work – ”

“Oh, Mother!” cried Jess. “What is it?”

“Listen: Addressed to me, ‘Dear Madam: – Will reconsider your suggestion of covering Hill section for society news. Can afford at least five dollars’ worth of space through the week, and perhaps something extra on Sunday. Come and see me again. Respectfully, P. S. Prentice.’ Well!”

“Oh, Mother!” repeated Jess. “What a splendid chance!”

“Why, Josephine, not so very splendid,” said her mother, slowly. “He only guarantees me five dollars weekly. That is not much.”

“It will feed us – if we are careful,” gasped Jess.

“Goodness, Josephine! What a horribly practical child you are getting to be. I don’t know what the girls of to-day are coming to. Now, that would never have appealed to me when I was your age. I never knew how papa and mamma got food for us.”

Jess might have told her that conditions had not changed much since her girlhood!

“But five dollars regularly will help us a whole lot, Mother,” she urged.

“And it will necessitate my going out considerably – and appearing at receptions and places. Really – I have refused a number of invitations because of my wardrobe. My excuse of ‘work’ is not always strictly true,” sighed Mrs. Morse.

“But do, do try it, Mother!” cried Jess.

“Well,” said the lady, “it may do no harm. And it may be an opening for something better. But, really, nobody must know that I am a mere society reporter on the Centerport Courier.”