The Girls of Central High on the Stage/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
"JUST LIKE A STORY BOOK"
The Morses were completely settled in their little house before school opened. Jess had had a busy vacation, but aside from her ride on Chet's and Lance's Blue Streak she had joined in little of the holiday fun of her mates at Central High.
There was one basketball game during the holiday recess. Central High met the Keyport team on their own court and outplayed them most decidedly; therefore the athletic temperature went up several degrees.
Mrs. Case, the physical instructor of Central High, was an enthusiastic out-of-doors woman, and as a heavy snow fell about New Year's she easily interested the girls under her instruction in skiing. This exercise, she pointed out, might take the place of the fortnightly walking expeditions during the snowy weather, and there was so much broken country behind Centerport that the sport could be indulged in with profit.
The boys were getting so much sport out of ice hockey that—as the league approved of that form of exercise—the physical instructor introduced it on the girls' athletic field. The field could be flooded, and had been; now it was a perfectly smooth piece of ice and upon it those of the older girls who were already good skaters, had a chance to learn the mysteries of hockey.
"Huh! Father Tom says it's nothing but old-fashioned 'shinny' with a fancy name tacked onto it," declared Bobby Hargrew. "But my! isn't it fun?"
Jess and her chum, as well as the irrepressible, "took" to hockey, and there were enough of the other girls interested for two good teams to be made up.
Hester Grimes captained one team and Laura the other. There was still some little feeling of rivalry between Hester and Mother Wit—perhaps not much on the side of the latter; but the wholesale butcher's daughter was inclined to be overbearing, and was never really satisfied unless she had an important part in whatever went on.
The struggle between the two teams for supremacy among the girls of Central High in this particular sport really led, however, to good results. Hester was backed by strong players; and being so muscular a girl herself she carried her side to victory two out of every three times.
"We ought to beat her—she'll get too uppity to live with," declared Bobby, discussing these games.
"It will do us good to be beaten occasionally," laughed Laura. "You begin to think, Bobby, that you must belong to the winning side all the time."
"Yes. Who doesn't?" sniffed Miss Hargrew. "It's all right—all this talk about playing the game for the game's sake; but right down in the bottom of our hearts, don't all of us play to win? If we don't, we never play well, that's as sure as shooting."
When the school re-opened, however, on the first Monday in January, the subject uppermost in the minds of the girls of Central High was the prize contest in play-writing for the M. O. R's. The girls crowded into Assembly that morning, all on the qui vive to hear what the principal would have to say.
But after the opening exercises, when Mr. Sharp came forward to speak, he surprised everybody by saying:
"We are not ready to report upon the matter of the plays. Mr. Monterey will confer with us at noon, and before school is dismissed to-day we will announce the winner.
"It is not often that a committe having in charge the decision of the winner in an amateur play-writing competition has the happiness to be aided by a professional manager of a theater, and a man, too, who has produced plays of importance himself.
"Mr. Monterey's knowledge of what will act well will make our final decision, I believe, one that will strike all competitors as eminently fair. We have tried to decide upon the prize winner in a way that will satisfy the giver of the prize, too—Mrs. Kerrick. She demanded a play that would act well and that will draw an audience because of its dramatic value as a play—not merely because it is written by a girl of Central High, or is performed by the girls and their friends for the benefit of the M. O. R's.
"Before the day closes, I can promise you, the decision will be made and the name of the prize-winner, and of the title of the play, will be announced. You are excused to your lessons for the morning."
The buzz of excitement—especially from the girls' side—when Mr. Sharp had ceased speaking, could scarcely be controlled. Not even Miss Carrington's basilisk eye could quell it.
Of course, poor Bobby fell a victim to Gee Gee's sour temper. She thought the teacher had long since reached the class room, and she was gabbling away to Nell Agnew and Jess "sixteen to the dozen," as she would have said herself. When out of a door popped the bespectacled Miss Carrington, grimmer and more stern than usual.
"Indeed, Miss! are you supposed to rattle away like that about matters entirely foreign to your lessons, on the way to class room?" demanded the teacher.
"Oh, indeed, Miss Carrington," exclaimed the contrite Bobby (she always was contrite when caught in a fault, for all her sauciness and lightness arose from thoughtlessness) "I really forgot—I did not mean to make a noise in the corridor."
"Humph! did not mean—did not mean? What excuse is that, pray?"
"Not a very good one, I am afraid," admitted Bobby. "But I truly did not intend to break a rule. We were all so much interested in the play"
"Yes. Quite so. It is evident that I will get little out of you young ladies until the matter of this silly play is settled. I presume you are one of the contestants, Miss Clara?"
"Not at all, Miss Carrington," said Bobby, demurely. "I did start to write one. It—it would have been a tragedy based upon several of the main incidents in the Punic Wars. But I found that to give the matter proper attention I should be obliged to neglect some of the studies, and"
"That will do, Miss Hargrew," interposed the teacher, severely. "You bring me on Friday afternoon a resume of those same Punic Wars—say a thousand words. I shall learn thereby just how much you know about the subject you selected for your play."
Perhaps Bobby deserved what she got; but she "pulled a dreadfully long face" about it, while the other girls were inclined to enjoy her chagrin.
As for Jess Morse, it seemed to her that the waiting for the announcement of the prize-winner was too hard a cross to bear. So much depended upon the decision of the committee—it did seem as though she could not keep her mind upon the lessons.
If she won—if she won!—there would be plain sailing in the domestic waters of the Morses' life—and that had come to mean a great deal to the girl. For even Mrs. Prentice's kindness to them had not cleared away all the troubles for Jess Morse.
True, the account at Mr. Closewick's had been paid. Jess, too, had seen to it that the month's rent for their new home was met and a little something paid each week on the running store accounts.
But when Mrs. Morse drew her salary for the last week from the Courier—and it amounted to nearly ten dollars that week—she had been obliged to pay the money over to her dressmaker. She had found it necessary to order a new costume, if she was to follow the fashionable receptions, and the like, on the Hill. This matter of her mother being a society reporter, Jess, feared, would cost them more in the end than it was worth to them.
And now they began the New Year with positively nothing in the family purse. And there was so much needed. There would be another reception at the M. O. R. house this very week and Jess told herself that she could not go because of her lack of a gown. Ah! these things were all veritable tragedies to her.
Lily Pendleton was very sure that she was going to take the prize. And she was not afraid to talk about it.
"Mother saw Mr. Monterey, and I am sure he was impressed by what she told him," she announced. "Why, when the New Century Club met at our house last week, I read two acts of my play, and all the ladies said it was fine."
"Aren't you modest!" grumbled Bobby. "I should think it would pain you."
"Now, don't you get saucy, Bobby," warned Lily. "You are not interested in this contest, that's sure."
"Huh!" cried Bobby. "I knew better than to try to write any such thing. If I won the prize nobody would believe that I wrote it."
"Oh, Bob," said Dora Lockwood. "You are too modest."
"Yes, sir—ree!" returned Bobby. "I know it. I am of the same modest and withdrawing nature as the turtle."
"The turtle?"
"Yep," said Bobby. "You know what the little boy said when he first went into the country? He came running to his father and says: 'Oh, Dad! what's this thing I found? When I poked it, it put its hands and feet in its pockets and swallowed its head!' Now, there can't be anything much more retiring than the turtle—or me."
The bell called them in for the final session then, and half an hour before closing time the signal from Mr. Sharp's office announced that the girls of all classes were to file to the Assembly hall and take their seats. On this occasion the boys were not present.
"If I don't get it I hope you do, Jess," whispered Laura Belding to her chum as they went to their seats.
But to herself Jess kept saying: "Oh, it would be too good to be true—too good to be true! It would be just like a story-book."
Mr. Sharp was smiling when he rose to speak.
"I must admit that I am surprised—happily surprised," he began. "Several of the plays submitted to the committee are really marked by a vigor of style and originality of text and plot that have delighted me. Particularly are 'The Strong Defense,' by Miss Belding, 'Appearances,' by Miss Hilyard, 'The Arrow's Flight,' by Miss Agnew and 'Harrowdale,' by Miss Buford to be praised upon these points.
"Of course, there were some handed in to the committee that were utterly unintelligible; the writers had not grasped the first principles of play-writing. But, as a whole, I am proud of your efforts, and I know Miss Gould is. I only fear that many of you young ladies who began plays did not finish them. It narrowed the choice down to a very few.
"And yet," pursued Mr. Sharp, "there was really little doubt in the minds of any of the committee at the first reading of the manuscripts. And when the plays considered, from a literary standpoint, really acceptable, were put in the hands of Mr. Monterey for a final reading and judgment, we were assured that our opinion was correct.
"There is but one, among them all, that is a really actable (pardon the coining of the word), and that one, too, has in it the elements of a really heart-moving story. The author has failed in many of the professional rules of play-writing—even her grammar is somewhat shaky in spots," added Mr. Sharp, smiling suddenly. "But the story is so sweet and so moving, and is so well fitted to the acting capacity of you girls and your brothers, that there is not the shadow of a doubt as to the worth of the piece and the success of the writer."
For a moment he was silent. The girls were eager. Lily Pendleton preened herself in her seat. Her play had not been named when the principal gave lukewarm praise to those mentioned. She was sure that he now referred to her and to her play.
On the other hand, Jess Morse had lost all hope. Her poor little play was not even mentioned, as Chet would have said, "among the also rans!"
"I am glad to announce—and to congratulate the young lady at the same time," said Mr. Sharp, "that Miss Josephine Morse is the winner of the two hundred dollars offered by Mrs. Kerrick, the title of her play being 'The Spring Road.'"
It came like a thunderbolt! Jess could only gasp and stare up at him until his smiling, rosy face, and the big spectacles, were blurred in a mist that seemed to rise before her like a curtain.
Bobby Hargrew started the cheering; but it was Laura who reached Jess first and hugged her tight.
"I'm just as disappointed as I can be!" she cried. "I actually thought my play was going to be best. But as it wasn't Why, Jess, I'm almost as happy over your winning it as you can be yourself!"