The Girls of Central High on the Stage; Or, The Play That Took The Prize

CHAPTER XIX—THE FIRST DRESS REHEARSAL

“He is a very scholarly man—and he knows all about staging this play. If it wasn’t for him, I guess, ‘The Spring Road’ would suffer from frost,” said Lily, with an unkind laugh.

“That may be,” said Laura, flushing a little herself, for any slur cast upon her chum’s play hurt her, too. “But his knowledge of how to produce or stage a play does not establish his private character.”

“Pooh! you are interfering in something that you know nothing about,” declared Miss Pendleton, loftily. “And it does not concern you at all.”

“I do not believe your mother would approve,” ventured Laura.

“Never you mind about my mother,” snapped Lily, and turned her back on Mother Wit.

The latter took herself to task later, thinking she had been too presumptuous.

“But really,” she said to Jess, on their way home that evening, “I did not mean to be. Only, the man looks so unreliable. I’m afraid of him.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” said Jess, decidedly. “I only dislike him. But there is no accounting for tastes. My mother knew of a foolish girl who wrote to an opera tenor—one of those handsome, spoiled foreigners, and she sent him her photograph and told him how much she liked his singing—and all that. Just a silly letter, you know. But she didn’t sign her name and she thought he would never learn who she was.

“But he went to the photographer,” continued Jess, “and bribed him to tell who the girl was, and by that time she had written to the man several times, and he had written to her. So then he threatened her that if she did not give him five hundred dollars he would send her letters to her father. And she was in dreadful trouble, for she was afraid of what her father would do.”

“Oh, Lil won’t do anything like that!” gasped Laura. “I don’t believe she even thinks she cares about that Pizotti. It is only his foreign way that makes it appear so. But I believe he is flattering her about her play, and perhaps will get money from her or her mother.”

“Pizotti! Ha!” grunted Jess, before they separated. “I’m like Bobby Hargrew: I don’t believe that’s even his name. It sounds too fancy to be a real name.”

But Mr. Pizotti was an able man in his business. He came from time to time to the M. O. R. house and his advice regarding the play was always practical. He was something of a musician, too, and played the accompaniments for the girls who sang in “The Spring Road.” He suggested improvements in the costumes, too; and Lily Pendleton was entirely guided by his taste in her choice of the gowns she was to wear in the production.

Mrs. Pendleton was a very busy woman in a social way and allowed her daughter to do about as she pleased. Lily aped the manners of girls who had long since graduated from school and were flashy in their dress and manners.

To tell the truth, the after-hour athletics, governed by Mrs. Case, had been the one saving thing in Lily Pendleton’s life for some months. She would have become so enamored of fashion and frivolity, had it not been for the call of athletics, that she would have fallen sadly behind in her school work.

But she liked certain activities enjoyed by those who were attentive to Mrs. Case’s classes; and to gain these privileges one had to stand well in her general studies. Lily was smart enough, was a quick student, and so kept up her school work.

This business of acting appealed to her immensely. She was “just crazy about it,” as she admitted to her particular friend, Hester Grimes.

“I wish my folks were poor, so that I would have to work when I leave school,” she declared. “Then I’d go on the stage myself.”

“You wouldn’t!” exclaimed Hester.

“I would in a minute. And this Signor Pizotti could place me very advantageously——”

“Pooh! you don’t believe anything that fellow says, do you?” demanded her chum, who was eminently practical and had none of the silly ideas in her head that troubled Lily.

“You don’t know him!” exclaimed Lily.

“Don’t want to,” replied Hester, gruffly.

Preparations for the first dress rehearsal of “The Spring Road” went on apace. But, of course, Bobby Hargrew would have bad luck! She was thrown from Short and Long’s bobsled one night and had to be helped home. The hurt to her foot was a small matter; but the doctor said she would have to wear her arm in a sling for a time.

“And how can I play Arista with my arm strapped to my side?” wailed Bobby, when Jess and Laura came in to commiserate with her over the accident. “Oh, dear me! I am the most unlucky person in the world. If it was raining soup I’d have a hole in my dipper!”

Mr. Monterey, the local manager, came himself to the dress rehearsal. He only sat out front, and watched and listened; and he went away without expressing an opinion to anybody. Yet Jess saw him there and was excited by the possibility of Mr. Monterey’s recognizing the value of the play for professional purposes.

At the Morse domicile things were going better, and the girl’s mind was vastly relieved from present troubles. Yet she was wise enough to see that in the offing the same danger of debt threatened them if they were not very, very careful.

It was true that scarcely half the prize money had been spent; yet Mrs. Morse’s regular work on the Courier barely fed them; and her success with the popular magazines was but fitful. Sometimes two months passed without her mother receiving even a ten-dollar check from her fugitive work.

Oh, if she could only find somebody who would take the play—after the M. O. R.’s had made use of it—and whip it into shape for professional use, and give her a part of the proceeds!

That was the thought continually knocking at the door of Jess Morse’s mind. It was “too good to be true,” yet she kept thinking about it, and hoping for the impossible, and dreaming of it.

However, the dress rehearsal of “The Spring Road” was pronounced by the teachers and Mr. Pizotti as eminently satisfactory. Bobby was letter-perfect in her part, if she did have “a damaged wing,” as she said. And most of the other important roles were well learned.

The very prettiest girl of Central High had been chosen for the chief female character, and in this case prettiness went with brains. She had learned her part, and was natural and graceful, and was altogether a delight.

As for Launcelot Darby, he was the most romantic looking Truant Lover that could have been found. And he played with feeling, too, although his mates were making a whole lot of fun of him on the side. But Laura had urged him to do his best, and Lance would have done anything in his power to please Mother Wit.

Chet Belding, as a peasant, “made up” well, and was letter perfect, too, in his part, if a little awkward. But that did not so much matter, considering the character he had to portray. And, of course, he would do nothing to belittle Jess’s play. His whole heart was in his work, too.

So, after that first dress rehearsal, the committee and Jess were hopeful of success. The time for the production of the play was set, the tickets printed, and out of school hours everything was in a bustle of preparation for the great occasion.

CHAPTER XX—“MR. PIZOTTI”

“Ha! ha!” chuckled Bobby, almost strangling with laughter. “He ought to have worn boots and so hidden his ‘cloven hoof.’ Come away, Jess, or I shall burst! Did you ever hear the like?”

“Why—why, what is it?” demanded Jess, mystified.

“Oh, don’t! Wait till I laugh!” chuckled Bobby, when they were around the corner of the corridor again. “Isn’t that rich?”

“Who was it talking?” asked Jess.

“Talking! Didn’t you recognize that oration?”

“I did not. Mother doesn’t allow me to read any penny-dreadful story papers, magazines or books.”

“Oh, ho! Wait!” gasped Bobby. “That’s Lil.”

“Lily Pendleton?”

“You evidently haven’t heard any of the ‘Duchess of Dusenberry’ before. That’s it!”

“Not part of her play?”

“That is one of the melodramatic bits,” said Bobby, weakly, leaning against the wall for support. “Yes, really, Jess. That is in her play. I’ve heard her recite it before.”

“My goodness me!” gasped Jess.

“It’s not all so bad, I guess. But when she gets flowery and romantic she just tears off such paragraphs as that. ‘Nor can you hide the cloven hoof beneath the edge of Virtue’s robe.’ Isn’t that a peach?”

“Bobby!” exclaimed Jess, breathless herself by now, “you use the worst slang of any girl in Central High.”

“That’s all right. But Lil’s using worse language than I ever dreamed of,” laughed Bobby. “I’ve heard her spouting that sort of stuff time and time again. When she shuts herself up, presumably to study her part in your play, half the time she is reciting her own lines. She likes the sound of ’em. And she had that Pizotti fellow backed in a corner of the front hall at the M. O. R. house the other afternoon, reciting that same sort of stuff to him.

“Repeating her play?”

“Yep. The silly! And he pretending that it was great, and applauding her. I’ll wager that he sees a way to make money out of Lil Pendleton, or he wouldn’t stand for it.”

Jess carried this idea in her mind, although she was not as much troubled by her schoolmate’s foolishness as was Mother Wit. There was a loyalty among the girls of Central High, however, that few ignored. Despite the fact that Jess had never especially liked Lily Pendleton, she would have done anything in her power to help her.

So, that very evening, when she was marketing, she chanced to see something that brought Lil’s affairs into her mind again. She was going into Mr. Vandergriff’s store when she saw a man, bundled in a big ulster, talking with the proprietor.

Griff came forward to wait on Jess, and the girl might not have noticed the man by the desk a second time had she not overheard Mr. Vandergriff say:

“You take advantage of my good nature, Abel. Because I knew you in the old country, you come here and plead poverty. I can’t see your family suffer, for your wife is a nice woman, if you are a rascal!”

“Hard words! Hard words, Vandergriff,” muttered the other.

Jess saw that he was a little man, and the high ulster collar muffled the lower part of his face. But as he turned toward the door she caught a glimpse of a glossy black mustache, and two beady black eyes.

It was Mr. Pizotti!

The girl was so astonished, for the man was shabbily dressed, and shuffled out with several bundles under his arm, that she could scarcely remember what else she wanted to buy when Griff asked her.

“Oh, I say, Griff!” she demanded, breathlessly, and in a whisper. “Who was that man who just went out?”

“Why—oh, that was only Abel Plornish.”

“Abel Plornish!”

“Yep. Poor, useless creature,” said the boy, with disgust. “Or, so father says. He knew Abel in England. You know, father came from London before he was married,” and Griff smiled.

“But this man—are you sure his name is Plornish?”

“Quite, Jess. Why, he plays the violin, or the piano, in some cheap moving picture place, I believe.”

“Then he is a musician?” demanded Jess, breathlessly.

“And a bad one, I reckon. But he has done other things. He’s been on the stage. And he’s even worked in the Centerport Opera House, I believe.”

“And that is really his name?” asked Jess.

“It’s an awful one, isn’t it? Plornish! Nothing very romantic or fancy about that,” laughed Griff. “Now, what else, Jess?”

Jess was so disturbed by this discovery that she could only think to ask Griff one more question. That related to where Plornish lived.

“Somewhere on Governor Street. I think it’s Number 9. Tenement house. Oh, they’re poor, and I believe when he gets any money he spends it on himself. I saw him once on Market Street dressed like a dandy. But when his wife and children come in here they look pretty shabby.”

It wasn’t very late, and, anyway, Jess couldn’t have slept that night without talking the matter over with Mother Wit. She left her basket in the kitchen, saw that her mother was busy at her desk, and ran up Whiffle Street hill to the Belding house.

“Is dat suah yo’, Miss Jess?” asked Mammy Jinny, peering out of the side door when Jess rang the bell. “Come right erlong in, honey. Yo’s jes’ as welcome as de flowers in de Maytime. B-r-r! ain’t it cold?”

“It is cold, Mammy,” said Jess to the Beldings’ old serving woman. “Where’s Laura?”

“She’s done gone up to her room ter listen ter Mars’ Chet an’ dat Lance Darby boy orate dem pieces dey is goin’ to recite in school nex’ week.”

“They are going to act in my play, Mammy!” cried Jess.

“Mebbe so. Mebbe so. But it’s all recitationin’ ter me. Dat leetle Bobby Hargrew was in here and she say it’s jes’ like w’en you-all useter recite at de Sunday night concerts in de Sunday school room. An’ dem pieces yo’ orated den was a hull lot nicer dan w’at Mars’ Chet is sayin’. ’Member how you recited dat ‘Leetle drops o’ water, leetle grains o’ sand’ piece, Miss Jess? Dat was suah a nice piece o’ po’try.”

“And you don’t care for the parts you have heard of my play, Mammy?” asked Jess, much amused.

“Suah ’nuff, now! Did you make up disher play dey is goin’ ter act?” demanded Mammy Jinny.

“I certainly did.”

“Wal, I hates ter hu’t yo’ feelin’s, Miss Jess,” said Mammy, gravely, “but dat ‘Leetle drops o’ water’ po’try was a hull lot better—ter my min’! Ya’as’m! yo kin’ go right up. Yo’ll hear dem-all a-spoutin’—spoutin’ jes’ like whales!”

And so she did. Chet was reading his lines with much unction while striding up and down Laura’s pretty little room. Lance and Mother Wit were his audience.

“For goodness sake, Chet!” cried Jess, breaking in. “Who told you your part was tragic, and that ‘The Spring Road’ was tragedy?”

“Huh?” questioned Chet, stopping short and blinking at her.

“Do read the lines naturally. Don’t be ‘orating,’ as Mammy Jinny calls it. I guess she’s right. ‘Little drops of water’ is better than all that bombastic stuff. Do, do, my dear, speak it naturally.”

“Hear her!” growled Chet “And she wrote it!”

“I never really meant it to sound like that, Chet,” declared Jess, shaking her head. “I really didn’t. Why! it sounds almost as bad as ‘The Duchess of Dawnleigh.’”

“Wha—what’s that?” demanded Lance.

“Not Lil’s play?” cried Laura. “Have you heard it?”

Jess told what she had heard at the door of the recitation room that afternoon, and they laughed over it.

“Yet I can see very well,” continued Jess, “that you actors can make my words sound just as absurd if you want to. Do, do be natural.”

“That’s what I tell them,” sighed Laura. “I am glad you heard Chet spouting here. One would think he was playing ‘Hamlet,’ or ‘Richard III.’”

Chet was a little miffed. But he soon “came out of it,” as Lance said, and he was so fond of Jess anyway that he would have tried his best to please her.

He grew more moderate in his “orating” and the girls, as critics, were better pleased. Lance took a leaf out of his chum’s book, too, and when he declaimed his lines he succeeded in pleasing Jess and Laura the first time. Besides, Lance was naturally a better actor than Chet.

Mr. Pizotti had taught them how to enter properly, and how to take their cues; but to Jess’s mind he was not the man to train amateurs to speak their parts with naturalness. If Miss Gould had not given so much time to the rehearsals of “The Spring Road” the play would have not been half the success it promised to be. And, of course, the Central High teacher gave her attention mainly to the girls in the cast of characters.

When Lance and Chet lounged off to the latter’s den Jess instantly poured into Laura’s ears her discovery of the identity of “Mr. Pizotti.”

“Well, even at that he may be a man trying to earn his living. Many stage people change their names for business reasons. ‘Plornish’ is not an attractive name, you must admit,” said Laura, smiling. “‘Pizotti’ fits his foreign look.”

“But what is he trying to get out of Lil Pendleton?” demanded Jess, bluntly.

“That’s what troubles me,” admitted Mother Wit. “I believe he is trying to get money out of Lily, or from her folks. And it has to do with Lil’s play. You can see that she believes her play was slighted and that it is a great deal better than yours, Jess.”

“I guess she has a good opinion of it,” returned Jess, laughing.

“Well, suppose this fellow tells her she is right, and that he can get it produced, if she will put up the money?” suggested Mother Wit. “I—I wish Lil would place confidence in me.”

“Tell her mother.”

“No use,” sighed Laura. “I doubt if she would even listen to me. She wouldn’t want to be bothered. You know very well the kind of woman Mrs. Pendleton is.”

“Well, I don’t suppose it is any of our business, anyway,” spoke Jess.

“It is. Lil is one of us—one of the girls of Central High. We have a deep interest in anything that concerns her. The only trouble is,” sighed Laura, “I don’t know just what is best to do.”

CHAPTER XXI—MOTHER WIT PUTS TWO AND TWO TOGETHER

Chet and Lance got the Blue Streak out again and there wasn’t a girl in the junior class who was not envious of Laura and Jess. Skating was tame beside traveling at a mile a minute in an aero-iceboat; and the other ice yachts were not in the same class with the invention of Chet and Lance.

The date set for the production of Jess’s play in the big hall of the schoolhouse approached, however; and preparation for the event was neglected by none of the M. O. R.’s or the other girls and boys in the cast.

Friday evening would see the first production; but the intention was to give a matinee for the pupils of the three Centerport High Schools at a nominal price on Saturday morning, and then a final performance Saturday evening. From these three performances the committee hoped to gain at least a thousand dollars, and possibly half as much more. This would be a splendid addition to the somewhat slim building fund of the M. O. R.’s.

Lily Pendleton went about these days with a very self-satisfied expression of countenance and such a mysterious manner that Bobby said to her:

“Huh! you look like an old hen that’s hidden her nest and thinks nobody’s going to find it, What are you up to now?”

“Don’t you wish you knew?” returned Lily.

Even Hester Grimes admitted that she was not in Lil’s confidence. But the hints Lily dropped troubled Mother Wit.

Laura Belding had not forgotten the discovery her chum had made regarding the identity of the man who called himself “Pizotti.” The stage director would not again attend the performance of “The Spring Road” until the day of the first production. Yet Laura believed that Lily had an understanding of some sort with him.

Governor Street, where Griff told Jess the Plornish family lived, was one of the very poorest in that part of the city, being located at the foot of the Hill and below Market Street itself.

Laura and Jess went shopping one afternoon on Market Street; and despite the fact that it was nipping cold weather, and that the street was a mass of snow-ice, save on the car tracks, they walked home. The sidewalks were slippery, and it took some caution to keep one’s feet; but the chums were so sure of their balance that they stepped along quite briskly.

From Mr. Vandergriff’s store they saw a poorly dressed little girl—perhaps eight years old, or so—dragging a soap box on runners. The box had several packages of groceries in it, besides a bottle of milk.

Just as the child started across Market Street there came a heavy sleigh with plumes, great robes, a pair of dapple gray horses, and a great jingling of bells. The driver did not see the little girl with her box until it was almost too late to pull out.

It all happened in a flash! The peril was upon the child before she or anybody else realized it; and it had passed her, only smashing her sled and spilling her goods, in another moment.

The sleigh, with the horses prancing, swept on and did not even stop for its occupants to note the damage it had done. The child was left crying in the gutter, with the groceries scattered about and the milk making a white river upon the dirty ice.

Laura sprang to aid the little one in picking up her goods; but Jess exclaimed:

“Did you see that, Laura?”

“I should think I did! And they never stopped.”

“But did you see who was in the sleigh?”

“No.”

“It was Lil—and that man was riding with her again.”

“Pizotti?” gasped Laura.

“Yes. Here! give me that bottle. I’ll run across and get another bottle of milk from Mr. Vandergriff. We’ll have to help the little one carry her stuff home. The little sled is smashed to smithereens.”

“All right, Jess. Now, don’t cry, child!” exclaimed Mother Wit, kindly, hovering over the little girl. “You won’t be blamed for this, I know.”

But the child was staring after the sleigh instead of picking up her goods, and with such a wondering look on her face that Laura asked:

“What is the matter with you? What did you see?”

The child still remained dumb, and Laura took her by the shoulder and shook her a little.

“What is your name?” she demanded.

“Maggie,” said the little one, gulping down a sob.

“Maggie what?”

“No, ma’am; Maggie Plornish,” stammered the other.

“My goodness me!” gasped Laura. “Did you see the man in that sleigh?”

“No, ma’am! No ma’am!” cried the little girl, in great haste, and shaking her head violently. “There warn’t no man in the sleigh.”

“Yes there was, child.”

“I didn’t see no man,” declared Maggie, energetically. “It was the lady I seen.”

“Do you know her?” asked Laura, slowly, convinced that the child was deceiving her—or, at least, attempting to do so.

“No, ma’am. I never seed her before.”

It was evidently useless to try to get anything more out of the child on that tack. But Laura was sure that there could not be two Plornish families in Centerport, and if Jess had seen the stage director in Lily Pendleton’s sleigh, it was plain that Maggie had seen him, too. And she had recognized him.

“Where do you live, little girl?” asked Laura, quietly, as she saw Jess returning with a fresh bottle of milk.

“Over ’ere on Governor Street. Number ninety-three, Miss.”

“Lead the way, then,” said Laura, promptly. “We’ll help you carry your things home and explain to mamma how you came to get them scattered. You surely have a mamma, haven’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am. And there’s a new baby. That’s who the milk’s for.”

“Say! how many of you Plornish children are there?” asked Jess, to whom Laura had immediately whispered the intelligence that this child was evidently one of Mr. Pizotti’s progeny.

“Seven, ma’am. But some’s older’n me and they’re workin’.”

“Don’t you go to school?” asked Laura.

“I can’t—not right now. We ain’t got good shoes to go ’round—nor petticoats. And then, the baby didn’t come along until a month ago and he has to be ’tended some while mamma washes and cleans up around.”

Laura looked at Jess meaningly and asked:

“Where’s your papa?”

“Oh! he’s home,” said the child, immediately losing her smart manner of speaking.

“Doesn’t he work?”

“Yes, ma’am. Sometimes.”

“What’s his trade?” asked Jess.

“Huh?”

Maggie Plornish had suddenly become very dull indeed!

“Doesn’t your father work regularly?” explained Laura, kindly. “Hasn’t he any particular work?”

Maggie considered this thoughtfully. Then she shook her head and with gravity replied: “I guess he’s an outa.”

“A what?” gasped Jess.

“An outa, Miss.”

“What under the sun’s an ‘outa’?” demanded Jess, looking at Laura.

But Mother Wit understood and smiled. “You mean he’s ’most always out of work?” she asked.

Maggie Plornish nodded vigorously.

“Yes, ma’am! He’s us’lly outa work. Most reg’larly. Yes, ma’am!”

“Well for mercy’s sake!” gasped Jess, gazing at her chum in wonder. “Can you beat that? If this is the same family——”

Laura stayed her with a look. “We’ll see,” said Mother Wit. “Lead on, Maggie. We’ll see your mother, anyway.”

CHAPTER XXII—MRS. PLORNISH

However, Laura and Jess, with little Maggie, reached the door in question in a few minutes, A puff of steamy air—the essence of countless washings—met the girls as the lower door was pushed open. That is the only way the long and barren halls were heated—by the steam from the wash-boilers. For Number 93 Governor Street was one of those tenement houses which seem always to be in a state of being washed, and laundered, and cleaned up; yet which never show many traces of cleanliness, after all.

“We live on the top floor,” said Maggie, volunteering her first remark since starting homeward.

“That doesn’t scare us,” said Laura, cheerfully. “Lead on, MacDuff!”

“No. My name’s Plornish,” said this very literal—and seemingly dull—little girl.

“Very well, Maggie MacDuff Plornish!” laughed Mother Wit. “We follow you.”

The little girl toiled up the stairs like an old woman. Laura and Jess caught glimpses of other tenements as they followed the child and saw that there was real poverty here. Jess began to compare her situation with that of these humble folk, and saw that she had much to be grateful for.

She was troubled over the lack of a new party dress, perhaps, or because there were times when she and her mother were pinched for money. But the bare floors and uncurtained windows of these “flats,” with the poor furniture and raggedly clothed children, spelled a degree of poverty deeper than Jess Morse had imagined before.

A sallow woman met them at the door of one of the top-floor flats. She was as faded as her calico dress. Her arms were lean and her hands wrinkled, and all the flesh about her finger nails was swollen and of a livid hue, from being so much in hot water.

Indeed, two steaming tubs stood in the kitchen into which the girls of Central High were ushered. A big wash was evidently under way, and Mrs. Plornish wiped her arms and hands from the suds, as she invited the girls in, staring in amazement at one and another meanwhile.

“Your little Maggie met with an accident, Mrs. Plornish,” said Laura, pleasantly, putting the packages she had carried upon the table. “And so we helped her home with her groceries.”

“And Mr. Vandergriff says never mind the bottle of milk that was spilled,” explained Jess, setting the second bottle on the table.

“You come from Mr. Vandergriff?” asked the woman, her faded cheek coloring a trifle.

Laura explained more fully. Mrs. Plornish seemed to have had her motherly instincts pretty well quenched by time and poverty.

“Yes’m. I expect Maggie’ll git runned over and killed some day on that there Market Street,” she complained. “But I ain’t got nobody else to send. Bob and Betty, and Charlemagne, air either at school or to work——”

“Where is your husband?” asked Laura, briskly. “Is he working?”

“Off an’ on,” said the woman, but looking at the visitors a little doubtfully.

“Engaged just at present?” pursued Laura.

“Look here, Miss,” said Mrs. Plornish, “air you charity visitors? Though you be young.”

“We have nothing to do with charities,” Laura said. “We just came to help Maggie. I didn’t know but I might know of something for your husband to do if he is out of work.”

“He ain’t. He’s got a job right now. And I guess it will turn out to be a good one,” spoke Mrs. Plornish, and she smiled with sudden satisfaction.

“It seems to please you, Mrs. Plornish,” said Jess, quickly. “I hope you will not be disappointed. Where is he working?”

“Oh, this job o’ work is goin’ to take him out o’ town for a while,” returned the woman, doubtfully.

“Indeed? To Lumberport?” asked the insistent Jess.

“No.”

“To Keyport, then?”

“I can’t tell you. It—it’s a secret—that is, it’s sort of a private affair. Abel is a very smart man in his way—and this—er—this job will bring him considerable money, I expect. I hope we’ll all be better off soon.”

She seemed excited by the prospect of her husband’s secret employment, yet she was doubtful, too. Laura and Jess looked at each other and they both came to the same conclusion. If Abel Plornish, alias “Mr. Pizotti,” was scheming to get some money from the Pendletons, Mrs. Plornish knew at least a little something about it.

But Laura did not know how to get this information from the woman; nor did the girl believe that it was really right for her to do so. But Mother Wit thought it would do no harm to help the family if she could do so without offending. She drew forth her purse and looked gently at Mrs. Plornish.

“You won’t mind if I give you something to spend on Maggie?” asked Mother Wit, in her most winning way. “Do let me help her, Mrs. Plornish! I really mean no offense.”

“Why, you look an honest enough young lady,” said the woman.

“Maggie says she needs shoes so that she can go to school. Don’t you think you can spare her for at least a part of the time?”

“Mebbe I’d better, Miss. The truant officer’s been around once,” said Mrs. Plornish. “But the baby’s so small——”

“If your husband is as successful as you think he’ll be,” interposed Jess, sharply, “you’ll be able to afford to let her go, eh? Then you will not have to work so hard yourself.”

“That’s right, Miss!” cried Mrs. Plornish, briskly.

Laura put the money for Maggie’s shoes into her hand. “I hope we may come and see Maggie again?” she said, pinching the thin cheek of the little girl, who had been staring at them all this time, without winking, and without a word.

“Sure you can, Miss! And thank you. Thank the young lady, Maggie,” ordered Mrs. Plornish.

Maggie gave a funny, bobbing little courtesy as the older girls went out. Laura and Jess said nothing to each other until they reached the street. Then the latter declared:

“She knows something about it.”

“About what?” asked Laura.

“Whatever it is that’s going on. Whatever it is ‘Pizotti’ is doing.”

“And we know he is staging your play for the M. O. R.’s,” said Laura, quietly. “That’s all we do know at present.”

“But there’s something else.”

“That we don’t know. I wish we did.”

“And he’s going out of town!”

“Perhaps that is not so,” returned Laura, thoughtfully. “Of course his wife knows that he works under an assumed name. That is no crime, of course——”

“But there’s something odd about it all,” cried Jess.

“All right. How are we going to find out? Lil won’t tell us——”

“And it is her business—or her mother’s,” said Jess. “And that’s a fact.”

“She’s one of us—she’s a Central High girl,” repeated Laura. “If we can save her from the result of her own awful folly, we should do so.”

“Huh! And we don’t know what she’s to be saved from as yet!” cried Jess, which ended the discussion for the time being.

But that evening Bobby Hargrew hailed Jess in her father’s store.

“Say, Eminent Author! what do you know about this?”

“About what, Bobby?” returned Jess.

Bobby was unfurling some sort of a folded paper which she had drawn from that inexhaustible pocket of hers.

“See! it’s a show bill. My cousin, Ed Pembroke, sent it to me from Keyport. He says the town is plastered with them. Does it remind you of anything?” and she began to read in a loud voice:

“‘Coming! Coming! Coming! North Street Orpheum——’ same date as your show here on Friday night, Jess.”

“I see,” said Jess, peering over her shoulder as Bobby unctuously read on:

“‘High Class Entertainment for High Class people!’ Ha! that’s good,” sniffed Bobby. “‘The Lady of the Castle’ played by a capable cast of professional Thespians, who will assist the Talented Young Amateur, GREBA PENDENNIS. ‘Her portrayal of the Duchess is a Work of Art.’ Wow, wow! Listen to that now!” cried Bobby, in great delight. “Wouldn’t you think that was Lil Pendleton?”

Jess stared at the bill, and whispered: “I would indeed.”

“But of course it isn’t!” gasped Bobby, looking at Jess, in sudden curiosity.

“What is Lil’s middle name?” demanded Jess, suddenly.

“Why—I—— Ah! she has got a middle name, hasn’t she? She signs it ‘Lillian G. Pendleton!’”

“That is it,” said Jess.

“But of course this can’t be Lil?” cried Bobby, aghast. “‘The Lady of the Castle’ might be another name for ‘The Duchess of Doosenberry’; though. What do you think, Jess?”

“I don’t know what to think,” said Jess. “But you give me that bill, Bobby, and I’ll show it to Mother Wit.”

CHAPTER XXIII—“CAUGHT ON THE FLY”

He was quite good natured about it, however, and entirely approved of the attempt of Central High pupils to do something upon the stage that was really “worth while.” And Jess Morse’s play was indeed far above the average of amateur attempts.

“You girls are invited to a dash on the Blue Streak after the rehearsal to-morrow, Sis,” Chet Belding said to Laura at dinner Thursday evening. “Lance and I will show you some sport.”

Mrs. Belding looked doubtfully at her husband. “Do you think that iceboat Chet has built is really safe for the girls, James?” she asked.

“Bless your heart, Mother!” returned the jeweler, his eyes twinkling, “it’s quite as safe for Laura and Jess as it is for the boys.”

“Ye—es, I suppose so,” admitted the good woman. “But it doesn’t seem so safe. Girls are different from boys.”

“Not so different, nowadays,” grumbled Chet. “You ought to see some of those husky Central High girls going off with Mrs. Case on their skis. And ski running is as dangerous as iceboating—believe me!”

“I do believe you, my son. I have no reason to doubt your word,” returned Mother Belding, quietly.

“Oh, Mum! that’s only an expression——”

“Please stick to English—and facts, Chetwood,” advised his mother.

“I declare!” grumpily remarked her son. “A meal of victuals at this house has got to be just like attending one of Old Dimple’s lectures.”

“Chet!” spoke his father, sternly.

“Well! I guess I didn’t mean it just that way—not the way it sounded,” the boy said hastily. “But mother does pick a fellow up so——”

“I have been doing that all your life, my son,” said his mother. “Whenever you stub your toe, mother has been there to comfort you.”

“Got you there, Chet,” laughed Laura. “And you used to be a terrible ‘stumble heels,’ too.”

“Say! you’re all down on me,” declared her brother, but in a milder tone. “I reckon I’m not so popular in this house as I thought I was. But that isn’t the answer to my question, Laura. Do you and Jess want to fly with us to-morrow just after lunch?”

“Of course we do,” replied his sister. “I don’t suppose mother has any real objection?”

“My objections to your sports and athletics seem to have very little reality about them, children,” said Mrs. Belding. “Even my husband will not give me backing.”

“When I see Chet and Laura anemic, or otherwise sickly, as the result of their out-of-door sports or gym. work, you will find me up in arms with you against such activities, Mother,” declared Mr. Belding, jovially. “I’d a good deal rather have little Mother Wit here half a Tom-boy——”

“Which I’m not, I hope, Papa Belding!” cried Laura, quickly.

“I should hope not,” said her mother.

“All right,” laughed Mr. Belding. “But I would rather you were than like a few of the girls who attend your school. Some of them are growing up to womanhood too quickly to suit me. There’s that Pendleton girl——”

“What do you know about Lily Pendleton, Father?” asked Laura, quickly.

“Why, she dresses like a girl of twenty-five—and acts that grown up, too,” observed the jeweler. “She was in the store a week or so ago. Now! there’s another bad thing. Her mother lets her do just about as she pleases, I guess.”

“Mrs. Pendleton has always been very lenient with Lillian,” agreed his wife.

“The girl brought into my store a jewel box in which were things valued at more than a thousand dollars, I believe. Old-fashioned jewels left her by her grandmother. She thought of having some re-set And she really wanted me to buy some of them. She said her mother wouldn’t care what she did with them.”

“Of course, James, you did not give the girl money?” exclaimed Mrs. Belding.

“Of course I did not! I am not a pawnbroker. But I valued the stones for her, and she took them away. I wonder what she really meant by trying to sell them?”

Laura listened and flushed; but she remained silent. Since her visit to the Plornish tenement, and since she had read the playbill from Keyport that Jess had brought her, Laura had been very gravely exercised in her mind regarding Lily Pendleton. But she could not bring herself to the point of taking either her father or mother into her confidence. It was not her own secret; it was Lily’s.

The following morning the rehearsal of “The Spring Road” went with a snap and vim that delighted everybody. Miss Gould could not praise the girls and boys too highly. Even Mr. Pizotti signified his satisfaction with the way in which the play proceeded. Really, the actual production of the piece would go on well without his presence, although the sum they had agreed to pay the stage manager covered the three performances of the play already arranged for.

Laura and Jess went down to the lake after luncheon to meet the two boys. The Blue Streak, fresh in a new coat of paint, and with every part of the mechanism guaranteed in perfect order, was already hauled out upon the ice.

The surface of the lake was not as it had been when the girls had taken their first ride on the aero-iceboat. Then the ice was like glass; but now it was pebbly, broken in spots, and not a little “hummocky.” There was a stiff wind blowing, too, and this broke up the thinner ice around the water-holes. The course for sleighs and for iceboats was fairly safe, however, all the way to Keyport.

“Say! we just saw Lily going driving with that sleek little foreigner,” said Lance, as the two girls appeared. “I should think Mrs. Pendleton would send a chaperone with her daughter. Old Mike, the coachman, is right under the girl’s thumb.”

“What do you mean, Lance?” asked Laura, quickly.

“Why, Lil Pendleton and the stage manager are out there in the Pendletons’ sleigh. They’re aiming for Keyport. And Lil has a big box in the sleigh. Guess they are taking lunch along.”

“Lunch!” ejaculated Chet. “Why, that yellow box would hold enough for an army.”

“My goodness me! A yellow box?” cried Jess. “Was it that box in which Lil has been bringing her costumes to and from the rehearsals?”

“Dunno,” said Chet, not much interested.

But Jess turned to her chum, eagerly.

“You know, Laura, she insisted in packing the dresses all into that box again this noon and taking them home with her as usual, although every other girl left her costume in the dressing-rooms. Did you notice it?”

“No,” said Laura, slowly.

“Maybe she doesn’t expect to get back until it’s time to go on for the evening performance,” suggested Lance.

“That’s not it,” returned Laura, quietly.

“What do you suppose that girl has got in her mind, Laura?” demanded Jess, as the boys were making the final preparations for their start.

“I do not know. But I believe she is the ‘talented young amateur’ advertised to appear at the Keyport Orpheum to-night,” said Laura, gravely.

“You don’t mean it!” gasped Jess. Then she added, with sudden excitement:

“Why, she’ll spoil my play!”

“If she is not here to play her part she will certainly interfere sadly with the success of ‘The Spring Road,’” admitted Laura.

“Oh, oh! That mean, mean thing!” cried Jess, under her breath.

“She is taking her costumes to wear in the production of her own play, which she has renamed ‘The Lady of the Castle,’” said Laura. “She will make a lovely ‘Duchess of Doosenberry,’ as Bobby nicknamed it, in those robes, Jess.”

“Why, Laura, I believe you are not sympathetic,” cried Jess.

“Don’t you be afraid, dear. Miss Lily will not appear as ‘the talented young amateur, Greba Pendennis,’ if that is what she really intends to attempt. I have fixed that.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Jess. But just then the boys shouted to them and they had to hurry to take their places in the iceboat

“Chet,” said Laura, to her brother, as she settled herself aboard, “run down near the Pendleton sleigh if you can. I want to speak to Lil.”

“Just as you say, Sis,” returned her brother. “All ready? Let her go, Lance! We’ll show these girls some traveling, eh?”

The Blue Streak was off in a moment and the way she tore over the ice always gave the two girls, at first, a feeling as though a wreck were imminent. But in a minute or two the feeling subsided, and through the automobile goggles they both wore they dared look ahead.

On this cold afternoon there were not many sleighs or iceboats on the racing course between Centerport and Keyport. But suddenly Lance looked around, grinned through his mask, and waved his hand toward the shore. The girls immediately knew that he had sighted the Pendleton sleigh.

Laura turned to look at her brother, and he nodded at her reassuringly. Lance reduced the speed, and the Blue Streak began to move shoreward.

The girls could now see the sleigh plainly. The yellow box in which Lil carried her costumes was a splotch of color against the white fur robes. And there was Lil herself and the black figure of the little stage director.

The Blue Streak ran closer and of a sudden the young folks aboard the iceboat saw that something was amiss with the Pendletons’ horses. The dapple grays were fat, well fed beasts, and the coachman was old and rheumatic. Perhaps the appearance of another iceboat that had just passed the sleigh had startled the horses.

However that might be, old Mike was suddenly flung from his seat, and the horses charged down the lake at a gallop, swinging the sleigh behind them at a pace that threatened to overturn it at any moment!

The four friends on the aero-iceboat could hear Lil scream. And up sprang the little black figure of Pizotti, alias Plornish, and the next moment he had leaped to the ice!

The horses tore on, and Lil was really in peril. But Chet guided the Blue Streak right down to the runaway, coming so close that Lance Darby was able to leap into the driver’s seat from the running iceboat.

It was a feat that called for agility and coolness; but the boy did it bravely. The next moment he was out on the tongue, had recovered the trailing lines, and the dapple grays were soon brought to an abrupt stop.

CHAPTER XXIV—THE GREAT NIGHT

“Here he comes, limping,” said Laura, rather brusquely. “He’s not dead. But how about Plornish?”

“Plornish?” returned Lil, puzzled.

“Pizotti, then, if you prefer his stage name.”

“Is—isn’t Pizotti his name?” demanded Lil, still struggling with her tears.

“His real name is Abel Plornish,” said Laura, bluntly. She saw no use in “letting Lily down easy.” “He has a wife and seven children living down on Governor Street, in a miserable tenement. He neglects them a good deal, I believe. But this time, if he had made what he expected to out of you——By the way, Lil, what were you going to pay him?”

“I—I——For putting me on the stage with his company?” she stammered.

“Is that the way he put it? Well, yes,” said Laura. “It’s the same thing. He was going to star you in your own play, was he?”

“Ye—es,” sobbed Lily. “And now it’s all spoiled! And I was going to take all the money I pawned grandmother’s jewels for——”

“Goodness me! How much?” snapped Laura.

“Five hundred dollars.”

“Has he got the cash?”

“No,” sobbed Lil.

“All right, then. No harm done. I went to Mr. Monterey and he found out that Plornish had got together no company at all. You were the only person who had learned a part in your play, I guess, Lily. Ah! Chet’s got him.”

Indeed, Chet had stopped the aero-iceboat and run back to the prostrate stage director. Plornish had a broken leg and had to be lifted by both boys into the Pendleton sleigh. Old Michael could manage the horses again and turned them about. Laura elected to go back to Centerport with the injured man and the very-much-disturbed Lily Pendleton.

“Now, just see the sort of a man this fellow is,” said Laura, paying no attention to the groanings of Plornish, “He was intending to get the money from you at Keyport and then disappear. All he spent was merely for the bills put up advertising the show—the show which he never intended would come off, Lil! And you were going down there and leaving us all in the lurch!”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” groaned Lil.

“I hope so. Sorry enough to go home and rest and prepare to play your part in ‘The Spring Road’ to-night,” spoke Laura, tartly.

“Oh, dear me! how can I?” cried the girl.

“If you don’t,” said Laura, frankly, “I won’t keep this affair a secret. You will be the laughing stock of all Central High. I am not going to allow Jess Morse’s play to be spoiled because of you. If you were so jealous and envious that you did not want to see Jess’s play succeed, you could have refused, at least, to be cast for an important part in it. And now,” went on Mother Wit, firmly, “you are going to play that part.”

“Oh, Laura! you are so harsh,” sobbed Lily.

“Much that will hurt you!” sniffed Laura. “We’ll drive around by the hospital and leave this Plornish man. If he dares to open his mouth, we’ll have him punished for trying to swindle you,” and Laura looked sternly at the black-eyed, foreign-looking fellow.

“You see, we know all about you, Mr. Plornish, and you will have to abide by what is done for you. Some of us will help your family while you are helpless. But you’ve got to be good, or even Mr. Vandergriff will forget that you and he used to be boys together. Pah! with your hair dye, and paint and powder, and all! Why, you are nearly fifty years old, so Mr. Vandergriff says, and you act and dress like a silly boy.”

Lily listened to all this, and stopped sobbing. She began to see that there was a chance for her to escape being a butt for her school-fellows’ jokes.

“Can—can you keep Jess and the boys from talking?” she whispered to Laura.

“They’ll be like oysters if I tell them to,” declared Mother Wit.

“Oh, then, I’ll do my best,” agreed the foolish girl. Possibly she was deeply impressed by her escape.

Mother Wit’s plans were carried out to the letter. Plornish was deposited at the hospital, where he would remain for some weeks. The performance of Jess’s play would have to get along without him on this opening night.

And when the hour for the performance arrived, Lily Pendleton was ready, her tears wiped away, glorious in one of her costumes, and “preening like a peacock”—to quote Bobby Hargrew—before one of the long mirrors in the dressing room.

“My, my!” laughed Bobby. “You look as grand as the Duchess of Doosenberry, don’t you, Lil?”

Lily looked at her rather sharply. “I’d really like to know how much that child knows?” the older girl murmured.

But it wasn’t what the shrewd Bobby knew; it was what she suspected!