But that had always been Mrs. Morse’s way. She was over-generous with Jess while she, herself, went with shabby gloves and mended shoes. But any sensible plan of retrenchment in their household expenses had never been evolved in her mind.
How they were to meet the added burden of the January rent never seemed to trouble her. Jess only spoke of it once during that first fortnight in December; then it disturbed her mother so much that the lamp of genius refused to burn for a whole day, and, with a sigh, the girl gave over discussing the point.
Checks for her mother’s stories came few and far between these days, Jess feared that they would soon owe Mr. Hargrew as large a bill as they had at Mr. Closewick’s store. And as for a new dress—well, the idea of that was as far in the offing as ever.
All the girls she knew well were so busy scribbling away at their prize plays that, had Jess been free herself out of school hours, she would have been unable to find any of her usual companions at leisure.
Even Chet Belding, who was always at her beck and call, was terribly busy these days. He and Lance Darby were hard at work upon some wonderful sort of ice craft they were building down in Monson’s old boathouse, near the Girls’ Branch Athletic League field and boathouse.
Each day saw the wintry winds grow colder, and soon the ice upon Lake Luna was thick enough to bear. Some of the more reckless boys had skated out to the steamboat channel, which had been sawed from the open water in the middle of the lake, so that the freight boats from Lumberport and Keyport could get to their docks.
Ice of such thickness on Lake Luna at this early date, however, surprised even that apocryphal person, “the oldest inhabitant.” And Jess Morse would have been glad of a new coat, or the set of furs that her mother had talked about. When she started for school some mornings, the first blast of keen air off the lake seemed to cut through her like a knife. She wouldn’t have had her mother know how really thin her apparel seemed for anything in the world.
And, very wisely, she kept up her gym. work faithfully. A few minutes’ vigorous exercise after the regular day’s work at school was finished put her in a glow, made her breathe more deeply and “put a shine in her eyes,” as Bobby expressed it.
“There isn’t a girl in the class who doesn’t need brisking up in the gym. this weather—unless it’s Eve Sitz,” confided Bobby to Laura and Jess as they left the gymnasium building together one afternoon. “Girls are just like cats; they all like to mope around the register or the steam radiator in cold weather. Why, Lil Pendleton wears a lace shawl over her shoulders in the house, and hangs over the gas-log like an old woman. We all ought to get back into basketball—and at the rowing machines—again. Once a week on the court isn’t enough to keep us alive.”
“If you knew the number of things Eve Sitz does, in and out of doors, before she comes to school in the morning, and after she gets home again, you wouldn’t wonder that she keeps her color, and is so brisk and strong,” laughed Laura.