“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.’”