“Oh, Mother! don’t praise me so much,” begged Jess. “The theme is good, I know. But it scares me. How can I ever dress it up to make it sound like a real play? It sounds so jerky and imperfect—that part that I have written, I mean.”
“There is something a dramatic critic told me once that may be true,” replied her mother. “It was that the piece which reads smoothly seldom acts well; whereas a play that ‘gets over the footlights’ usually reads poorly. You see, action cannot be read aloud; and it is the action that accompanies the words of a dramatic piece that makes those words tell.
“I am not sure that Mr. Sharp and his committee will consider your play the best written, from a literary standpoint; but I understand that they have invited Mr. Monterey, the manager of the Centerport Opera House, to read the plays, too. And you, Josephine, write for him; for they will depend upon his judgment in the choice of the acting qualities of the piece.”
This was good advice, as Jess very well knew. And she could barely keep her mind sufficiently upon her school work to pass the eagle scrutiny of Miss Grace G. Carrington, so wrapped up was she in the play. Not even to Laura did she confide any facts regarding the piece. Some of the girls openly discussed what they had done, and what they hoped; but Jess kept still.
Thursday came and in her mother’s morning mail was a letter with the card of the Centerport Courier in the corner.
“Now, what can that be?” drawled Mrs. Morse, when Jess eagerly brought it to her. “They buy no fugitive matter, and I haven’t sent them anything since having my interview with Mr. Prentice. I really would have been happier to see a letter like that from one of the New York magazines; it might have contained a check in that case,” and she slowly slit the envelope.
But Jess waited in the background with suppressed eagerness in her face and attitude. At once her thought had leaped to Mrs. Prentice. She had not told her mother a word about that lady’s visit on Friday evening, nor her errand to the house. But if Mrs. Prentice was really “the power behind the throne” in the Courier office, she might easily put some regular work in the way of Mrs. Morse.
“Listen to this, child!” exclaimed her mother, having glanced hastily through the letter. “Perhaps I had better take this—for a time, at least. I don’t like the idea of being tied down—it might interfere with my magazine work——”
“Oh, Mother!” cried Jess. “What is it?”
“Listen: Addressed to me, ‘Dear Madam:—Will reconsider your suggestion of covering Hill section for society news. Can afford at least five dollars’ worth of space through the week, and perhaps something extra on Sunday. Come and see me again. Respectfully, P. S. Prentice.’ Well!”