“And think of the expense of moving,” she declared.
“But the two dollars less we pay a month will soon pay for that,” said Jess, eagerly.
“Well—er—perhaps,” admitted her mother, doubtfully.
Jess had to do it all, however. She had to attend to every detail of the change. Fortunately her mother received a check of some size and the daughter obtained a part of it for current expenses. She hired a truckman, packed most of their possessions after school hours, and saw to the setting up of their goods and chattels in the new home.
There were several tons of furnace coal in the cellar of the new home. In the old cottage there had been no heater. Mrs. Prentice told Jess that she could pay for the coal a little at a time, and the girl gladly availed herself of this advantage.
For the winter promised to be a severe one. Since frost had set in in earnest there had been no let-up. Jess and her mother moved during the short holiday vacation. The day school closed; the contestants for the prize offered by Mrs. Kerrick handed in their plays. The announcement of the successful one would be after the intermission—on the first Monday of the New Year.
When the Morses really came to remove their goods from the house in which they had lived so long, old Mr. Chumley would have liked to get out an injunction against their doing so.
“I never thought you’d do it, Widder!” he croaked, having hurried over the minute he heard the moving man was at the door. “Why—why mebbe we could have split the difference. P’r’aps three dollars a month more was a leetle steep.”
“Oh, dear me!” sighed Mrs. Morse. “Really, Mr. Chumley, this is Jess’s doings. She thinks the change will be better for us——”
“Now then! I wouldn’t let no young’un snap me like I was the end of a whip!” cried the old man. “You bundle your things back into the house, and we’ll call it only a one-fifty raise.”