Before morning old Jack Frost snapped his fingers and the whole world
was encased in ice. The sidewalks were a glare, the trees, and bushes,
to their tiniest twig, were as brittle as icicles, and a thin white
blanket had been laid upon the lawns along Whiffle Street.
It was the first really cold snap of winter. Chet Belding came clumping
down to breakfast that Saturday morning.
"Skating shoes!" exclaimed his sister, Laura. "What for, Sir Knight?"
"I bet a feller can skate in the street--on the sidewalk--almost
anywhere this morning," declared Chet, with enthusiasm.
"You don't mean to try it?" cried Laura.
"I'll eat my honorable grandmother's hat if I don't----"
"Chetwood!"
The horrified ejaculation came from behind the coffee percolator. Mrs.
Belding had been perusing her morning mail. Mr. Chetwood chuckled, but
graduated it into a pronounced cough.
"Yes, ma'am!" said Chet, meekly.
"What _kind_ of language is this that you bring to our table? Your
grandmother certainly was honorable----"
"That's an imitation of the stilted expressions of the Japs and Chinks,"
interrupted Chetwood. "Thought you'd like it. It's formal, abounds in
flowery expressions, and may not be hastened. Quotation from Old
Dimple," he added, sotto voce.
"Please leave your grandmother out of it," said Mrs. Belding, severely.
"And if you mean Professor Dimp, your teacher at Central High, do not
call him 'Old Dimple' in my presence," which showed that Mother
Belding's hearing was pretty acute.
"Anyhow," said Chet, "I'm going to try the ice after breakfast. Going to
get Lance and we'll have some fun. Better get your skates, Laura."
"No. I'm going to the store with father--if we don't both tumble down
and roll to the bottom of the hill at Market Street, like Jack and
Jill," laughed his sister.
"Teams can't get over the asphalt this morning," said her brother. "We
can coast clear to the elbow, I bet you."
He hurried through his breakfast and some time after Laura and her
father started for the jewelry store, in which the girl had certain
Saturday morning tasks to perform, the voices of Chet and his friends
awoke the echoes of the street as they skated on the asphalt.
Whiffle Street was an easy slope toward the elbow, where Jess Morse and
her mother lived. Although the keen wind blew pretty strongly right up
the hill, when Laura and her father started for the store the boys were
holding hands and in a line that swept the street from curb to curb,
sailed gaily down the hill upon their skates.
"That's fun!" exclaimed Laura, her cheeks rosy with the wind, and her
eyes sparkling.
"It's just like life," said her father, "It's easy going down hill; but
see what a pull it is to get up again," for Chet and his comrades had
then begun the homeward skate.
Lance Darby, a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked lad, who was Chet's particular
chum, was ahead and he came, puffingly, to a stop just before Laura.
"This is great--if it wasn't for the 'getting back again.' Good-morning,
Mr. Belding."
"Why don't you boys rig something to tow you up the hill?" asked Laura,
laughing, and half hiding her face in her muff.
"Huh!" ejaculated her brother, coming up, too. "How'd we rig it, Sis?"
"Come on, Mother Wit!" laughed Lance. "You tell us."
"Why--I declare, Chet's got just the thing standing behind the door in
his den," cried Laura, her eyes twinkling.
"What?" cried Chet "You're fooling us, Laura. My snowshoes----"
"Not them," laughed Laura, preparing to go on with her father.
"I know!" shouted Lance, slapping his chum suddenly on the back. He was
as familiar with Chet's room as was Chet himself.
"Out with it, then!" demanded Chet.
"That big kite of yours. Wind's directly up the hill. We'll get it and
try the scheme. Oh, you Mother Wit!" shouted Lance, after Laura. "We're
going after the kite."
And that suggestion of Laura's was the beginning of Chet and Lance
Darby's "mile-a-minute iceboat"--but more of that wonderful invention
later.
Laura was halted again before she reached Market Street, and her father
went on without her, for it was now half-past eight. Jess Morse waved to
her from a window, and in a moment came running out in a voluminous
checked apron and a gay sweater-coat, hastily "shrugged" on.
"Where were you last night?" cried Laura. "We missed you dreadfully at
the M. O. R. house."
"I--I really couldn't come," said her chum, hesitating just a little,
for it was hard not to be perfectly frank with Laura, who was always so
open and confidential with _her_. "Mother is so busy--she worked half
the night----"
"Genius burns the midnight oil, eh?" laughed Laura.
"Yes, indeed. And now I'm about to make her toast and brew her tea, and
she will take it, propped up in bed, and read over the work she did last
night. Saturdays, when I am home, is mother's 'lazy day.' She says she
feels quite like a lady of leisure then."
"But you should have come to the first big reception of the winter,"
complained her chum.
"Couldn't. But I heard that there was something very wonderful going to
happen, just the same," cried Jess.
"What do you mean?"
"About the prize."
"My goodness me! Somebody is a telltale," cried Laura, laughing. "We
were not going to spread the news until Monday morning."
Jess told her how the rumor of the prize had come to her ears.
"No use--it's all out, and all over town, if Bobby Hargrew got hold of
it."
"But what's Mrs. Mabel Kerrick going to give the two hundred dollars
_for?_"
"Oh, Jess! it's a great scheme, I believe--and it's mine," said Laura,
proudly.
"But you don't tell me _what_ it is," cried her chum, impatiently.
"It's to be given for the best play written by a Central High girl,
between now and the first of January. Any girl can compete--even the
freshies. And then we'll produce it, and get money for the M. O. R.
building fund."
"A play!" gasped Jess, her face flushing.
"That's it. And the Lockwood girls are going to try for it--and so's
Nell Agnew. Will you, Jess? Just think of two hundred dollars!"
"I am thinking of it," replied her chum. "Oh, Laura! I'm thinking of it
all the time."
She said it so earnestly that Laura stared at her in amazement.
"My dear child!" she cried. "Does two hundred dollars mean so much to
you?"
"I--I can't tell you how _hard_ I want to win it," gasped Jess.
"Well! I'm going to try for it, too," laughed Laura, suddenly, seizing
her friend's arm and giving it an affectionate squeeze. "But I _do_
hope, if I can't win it, that you do!"
"Thank you, Laura!" replied her friend, gravely.
"And your mother's a writer--you must have talent, too, for writing,
Jess."
"That doesn't follow, I guess," laughed Jess. "You know that Si Jones
talks like a streak of greased lightning--so Chet says, anyway--but his
son, Phil, is a deaf-mute. Talent for writing runs in families the same
as wooden legs."
"So you do not believe that even a little reflected glory bathes your
path through life?" chuckled Laura.
"I am not sure that I would want to be a professional writer like
mother," sighed Jess, her mind dwelling on the trouble they were in.
"There is a whole lot to it besides 'glory.'"
"Well, if I can't write the winning play, I hope you do, Jess," repeated
Laura, going on after her father.
Jess returned to her work indoors. From the window, after a little, she
caught sight of a whole string of boys sliding up the hill of Whiffle
Street on their skates, the big kite which Chet and Lance had raised
supplying the motive power.
Chet beckoned her out to have a part in the fun; but much more serious
matters filled Jess Morse's mind. When her mother finally arose, and
folded and sealed and addressed the packet containing her night's work,
Jess had to go out and mail it.
"I really believe that is a good story, Jess," said her mother, who was
sanguine of temperament. She had a childish faith in the success of
every manuscript she sent out; and usually when her chickens "came home
to roost" her spirits withstood the shock admirably.
"Now, don't forget the list of things you were to get at Mr.
Closewick's," added Mrs. Morse. Jess had kept her evening's troubles
strictly to herself. "I believe he sent in a bill, but you tell him how
it is; we'll have money in a day or two."
"But, Mother, we owe other stores, too," murmured Jess.
"I know it, child. But don't remind me----"
"And the rent will be due. Mr. Chumley was here last night----"
"Not for his rent so soon?" cried the irresponsible lady.
"But he is going to raise our rent--three dollars more after January
first."
"Oh, how mean of him!" exclaimed Mrs. Morse.
"I don't see how we are going to get it, Mother," said Jess, worriedly.
"Well, that's true. But we've got another month before we need to cross
_that_ bridge."
That was Mrs. Morse's way. Perhaps it was as well that she allowed such
responsibilities to slip past her like water running off the feathers of
a duck.
"And if Mr. Closewick shouldn't want to--to trust us any longer,
Mother?" suggested Jess. That was as near as she could get to telling
the good lady what had really happened the night before.
"Why! that would be most mortifying. He won't do it, though. But if he
does, we'll immediately begin trading elsewhere, I don't really think
Mr. Closewick always gives us good weight, at that!"
Jess could only sigh. It was always the way. Mrs. Morse saw things from
a most surprising angle. She was just as honest--intentionally--as she
could be, but the ethics of business dealing were not quite straight in
her mind.
And something must be done this very day to put food in the larder. What
little Jess had brought in from Mr. Vandergriff's store would not last
them over Sunday. And her mother seemed to think that everybody else
would be just as sanguine of her getting a check as she was herself.
"I do wish you had been able to get steady work with the _Courier_,"
spoke Jess, as she prepared to go out.
"That would have been nice," admitted her mother. "And I am in a
position to know a good deal of what goes on socially on the Hill. I am
welcome in the homes of the very best people, for your father's sake,
Jess. He was a very fine man, indeed."
"And for your own sake, too, Mamma!" cried Jess, who was really, after
all, very proud of her mother's talent.
"It would have been nice," repeated Mrs. Morse. "And certainly the
_Courier_ is not covering the Hill as well as might be. I pointed that
out to Mr. Prentice; but he is limited in expenditures, I suppose, the
paper being a new venture."
It was on the tip of the girl's tongue to tell her mother of the visit
of Mr. Prentice's sister-in-law the evening before. But why disturb her
mother's mind with all that trouble? So she said nothing, kissed her
fondly, and sallied forth to beard in their lairs "the butcher, the
baker, and the candlestick maker." And, truly, there were few girls in
Centerport that day with greater lions in their way than those in the
path of Jess Morse.