Mrs. Prentice was a widow herself. But she had no mawkish sentimentality. She had lived in the world too many years for that. She was not given to charities of any kind. But the thought of Jess Morse and her widowed mother clung to her mind like a limpet to a rock – even after she had dismissed her maid that night and retired.
“Just think!” she muttered, with her head on the pillow. “If that purse had been really lost I might have made that young girl a lot of trouble – and her mother. And she is such a frank, courageous little thing!
“We do need more charity – the right kind. Somehow – yes – I must do something to help that girl.”
CHAPTER VI – IT ALL COMES OUT
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