The moon, hanging low upon the horizon, was young but brilliant. The air
was so keen and clear that without the help of the moonlight it seemed
as though the stars must have flooded the lake with white light.
Nearer the southern shore the jingle of sleigh-bells and the laughter
and shouting of the skaters marked the revelers who gave a free course
to the iceboats out here nearer the open water. For both east and west
of Cavern Island, which lay in the middle of Lake Luna, opposite
Centerport, the ice was either unsafe, or there were long stretches of
open water. The freight boats up and down the lake kept this channel
open.
But there was a wide and safer course before the flying aero-iceboat.
And soon she was moving so fast that the girls heard nothing but the
shriek of the wind rushing by.
Here and there before them lanterns glowed like huge fireflies. These
lights were in the rigging of several ice-yachts. Chet and Lance had a
pair of automobile searchlights rigged forward on their own boat.
Another yacht had started from the old boathouse at about the time our
friends and their new-fangled craft got under way. There were girls
aboard it, too; but at first the Beldings and Jess and Lance did not
recognize the other party.
The strange yacht was distinguished, however, by a red and green lamp.
As Chet had been slow in starting, the other boat got ahead. But now,
although the wind was fair and the other yacht traveled splendidly, the
aero-iceboat bore down upon it, beating it out and leaving it behind
like an express train going by a freight.
However, Chet would not allow Lance to throw on all speed. There were
too many other craft on the ice before them--and it was night.
The lights of the City of Centerport soon fell behind them; then, almost
at once, they picked up the lights of Keyport at the extreme end of the
lake. They were traveling some!
Chet had strapped on a megaphone, which he had borrowed from Short and
Long, who was coxswain of the boys' Central High eight-oared shell, and
through this he shouted his orders to Lance. They ran down within a mile
of Keyport, and then shut off the engine and circled about on the
momentum they had gained. There were too many skaters and sleighs on the
ice down here to make iceboating either safe or pleasurable.
"My goodness me! Wasn't that fun?" gasped Jess.
"Felt like you was traveling some, eh?"
"Oh, Chet! it was great!"
"It certainly is a fine boat, Bobby," agreed Laura. "You and Launcelot
have done well."
"Wait!" said Lance, warningly.
"Wait for what?" demanded Laura.
"We didn't travel that time. We were only preparing you--warming her up,
as it were. Wait till we let her out."
"My goodness!" cried Jess. "Can you go faster?"
"We'll show you, going home," said Chet.
Just then the boat with the green and red light swooped down upon them
and a voice shouted:
"What kind of a contraption is that you've got there, Belding?"
"Hullo!" exclaimed Chet. "That's Ira Sobel's yacht. Ira is Purt Sweet's
cousin." Then he answered: "Oh, this is a little rigging of my own, Mr.
Sobel. But she can travel. Rather beat's your _Nightkawk_, eh?"
"Well, she did that time," admitted Sobel, doubtfully.
"My goodness me!" the friends heard the Central High dandy exclaim. "I
weally wouldn't want to travel any faster, Ira. I--I haven't weally got
my breath yet!"
"Oh, I say!" cried another voice from the iceboat, and they recognized
Lily Pendleton's. "What do you think about the prize? Did you hear?"
"Why, they haven't decided on the best play yet, have they?" returned
Jess, eagerly, and before her chum could speak.
"No, But I heard they'd put it all into Mr. Monterey's hands. He's the
manager of the Opera House, you know. And mother is very well acquainted
with him. You girls laughed at my play----"
"Not I, Lily," interrupted Laura, good-naturedly. "I was too afraid that
the rest of you might have a chance to laugh at mine."
"Well, I bet I've a good chance to win. Mr. Monterey is real nice, and
mother is going to see him."
"Pooh!" exclaimed Chet. "She's one of those people who think influence
brings things about. Don't you be worried, girls; I bet Mr. Sharp won't
let anybody get that prize through favoritism."
"That's very encouraging, Chet," said Jess. "But perhaps Lily will win
it. You know, she goes to plays more than any other girl in the Junior
class of Central High, that's true. And she reads novels--real silly
ones. Maybe she knows how to write just what would please a theatrical
manager."
"Pooh!" said Laura, "I'm not giving up all hope yet--especially because
of Lil Pendleton's say-so."
"Now, look out!" shouted Lance. "All ready to go back, Chet?"
"Start her!" exclaimed his chum, "Cling tight, girls--and take a good
breath. I want to time this trip. It's all of nine miles to the starting
point and we'll show you----"
His voice trailed off and the girls did not hear the rest of his speech.
The big propeller-wings began to beat the air, and the sound rose to a
keen buzzing. Chet snapped his watch back into his pocket, raised his
hand, and the iceboat tore ahead.
In twenty seconds the wind rushed past them so that the girls were
forced to bend their heads. The way was clear and Lance had "let her
out." Chet bent sidewise watching the ice through his goggles.
Occasionally he screamed an order to his chum, who signaled with his
hand that he heard and understood.
It was like the flight of a meteor! Laura and Jess never had realized
before what it meant to travel fast. Motoring on land was nothing like
this. As though shot out of some huge cannon the aero-iceboat skimmed
the lake. The wind was almost in their faces, but that made little
difference to this new invention of the chums.
The other yachts had to tack against the wind; not so the aero-iceboat.
Swift and straight she flew and suddenly Chet roared to Lance to shut
down, and the propeller groaningly stopped.
Chet flung up his goggles and drew out his watch.
"Eight and a half minutes!" he cried, with glee. "And, as I told you,
it's a good nine miles."
"Let me off! let me off!" gasped his sister, struggling down from the
narrow body of the boat. "Why! I never want to travel any faster, Chet.
Do you think it is _safe?_"
"You bet it is, Miss Laura," said Lance. "Or we wouldn't have invited
you girls to go with us."
"Just wait till some day--say Saturday. By daylight I'd drive this thing
faster than that. I tell you, we've got the speediest craft on the whole
lake."
"It beats what Mrs. Case told us about ski running in Sweden," cried
Jess, who was delighted with the experience. "And if Mrs. Case starts a
class to travel on skis this winter, I want to be in it."
"Well! it's all right to hear about. But the experience is sort of
shaking," sighed Laura. "I'm not sure that I have an over-abundance of
pluck, after all."
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 committee 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!"