“I guess it would help us out a whole lot,” admitted the girl “We need so many things——”
“Why, I shouldn’t allow you to use a cent of it for the household—or for me,” cried her mother. “No, indeed.”
“I haven’t won it yet,” sighed Jess. “But I guess if I did win it you’d have to take a part of it, Mother.”
“Nonsense, child!” cried Mrs. Morse. “We’ll have some checks in shortly. And we sha’n’t starve meanwhile. Now, let us look over this plot you have evolved and perhaps I can suggest some helpful points—and show you how to write brisk dialogue. That is something the editors always praise me for—although I have never dared try a play myself. It is so hard to get a hearing before a really responsible manager.”
Outside help for the girls was not debarred by the terms of the contest, so long as the main thread of plot in each play was original with the author, and she actually did the work. Jess listened to the practical suggestions of her mother in relation to her play; but all the time she had upon her mind, too, the domestic difficulties that seemed to have culminated just now in a single great billow of trouble.
No money had come in. She had been obliged to go once more to Mr. Hargrew for groceries, and to the meat store and to Mr. Vandergriff’s. Her mother could talk in her cheerful manner about what she could do with the two hundred dollar prize if she earned it. But Jess was very sure that she would not spend it for personal adornment—although no girl at Central High loved to be dressed in the mode more than Jess Morse.
“If such a darling thing should happen as my winning the prize, I’d put it all in the bank for a nest-egg,” she thought. “Then, when checks do not come in, we would not have to ask for credit. We’d pay up all debts and start square with the world. And then—and then I’d be perfectly happy!”
The first of the month arrived, and with it Mr. Chumley. Mrs. Morse was busy at her desk and said:
“Just tell him, Josephine, that we will have it shortly. He needn’t come again. I’ll let you take it around to his house to him when I get it.”
But this did not suit the old man, and he pushed his way, for once, into the presence of the literary lady.