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

by Gertrude W. Morrison

“Oh! I’ll never be fit to do anything in athletics again!” gasped Jess.

Which was certainly not borne out by the facts, for Jess Morse took a most important part in the spring meet of the Girls’ Branch Athletic League, as a perusal of the next volume of this series: “The Girls of Central High on Track and Field; Or, The Champions of the School League,” will prove.

At last Miss Gould said all was ready. Really, she did very well without the assistance of the unpleasant, black-eyed, little Pizotti! The signal was given and the curtain rose on the first tableau—and it was a pretty sight! In this allegorical introduction to Jess’s play there were a score of the very prettiest girls of Central High, and they had been dressed and were grouped so artistically that an “Ah!” of admiration burst from the big audience.

The little fantasy unwound the thread of plot which introduced the real play; but when the curtain went down there was no enthusiastic applause. The audience was expectant; but did not wholly understand it. And this was as it should be; the intent of that little prologue was merely to whet the appetite for the real play.

“The Spring Road” ran its three acts through with unvarying success. The applause grew more pronounced; the interest of the audience grew deeper. The fact that a young girl had written the text of the play became harder and harder to believe as the evening lengthened.

At the end—when the general lights went out, one by one upon the stage and left the two principal characters in the radiance of the spot light alone—and when this dimmed slowly and finally went out, the silence of the audience was momentous.

Jess, in the wings, clinging to her chum, waited, scarcely breathing, for the verdict. Had it failed? Had the little lesson she had tried to teach, and the pretty story she had told, failed to “get over?”

Suddenly there was a roar of delight from the back of the hall. Some of the older boys of Central High had managed to get tickets to this first performance, and, led by big Griff, they began to chant the well-known yell of Central High.

But that was not what Jess waited for. That was school loyalty. She had expected that.

As the thunder of the boys’ applause began to wane there was another sound which reached the ears of those listening behind the curtain. A steady, sharp clapping of hands; then joined by a shuffling of feet. The great mass of the audience was applauding.