She did agree, finally, however, to have a new dress so that she could attend the M. O. R. reception that week, at which her play was read aloud by Miss Gould herself, and it was praised by the audience until Jess’s ears fairly burned. Then the committee properly appointed went into executive session and plans for the production of “The Spring Road” went with a rush.
It was easy to choose a cast of characters. With a little advice from Jess it was not hard to select the very girls and boys best fitted to act in the piece. And such selection was made that very week, the typewritten ‘sides’ distributed to the several players, and the boys and girls went to work to memorize their parts. Lance Darby and Chet Belding were both in the play, and although neither Laura, nor Jess herself, had a part, they were both so busy (for they were on the M. O. R. play committee) that for a few days athletics and sports were well-nigh neglected.
Through the good-natured manager of the Centerport Opera House, scenery and much of the properties and some costumes for the inferior characters were to be obtained. But the principal characters would furnish their own costumes, and that is where Lily Pendleton began to lose her dissatisfaction. Disappointed as she had been regarding the decision of the committee, when she found that she was cast for an important part in Jess’s play she “came out of the sulks,” as Bobby termed it.
Mr. Monterey suggested to the committee, too, the name of a man to take charge of the rehearsals—really, to be stage director of “The Spring Road.” He came to the M. O. R. house one afternoon to read the play—a dapper, foreign-looking man of an indeterminate age, who continually twirled a silken black mustache and listened devotedly to any girl who talked to him.
Lily began to cultivate Mr. Pizotti assiduously. Really, one might have supposed she had written the play, instead of Jess Morse, she was so frequently in conference with Mr. Pizotti that first afternoon.
Bobby, who had likewise been cast for a part in “The Spring Road,” watched Lily’s actions with the stage manager with a good deal of disgust.
“What do you know about that foolish girl?” she demanded. “I’ll wager that greasy foreigner has got a wife and ten children—and neglects them. He has brilliantine on that moustache, and he smells of hair-oil, and I’ll wager, too his hair will show gray at the roots, and I know it is thin on top.”
“How wise you are, Miss Bobby,” said Nellie, who heard her. “For a child you seem to have learned a lot.”
“I’m foxy,” returned Bobby, grinning impishly. “I’m fully as smart as that kid brother of Alice Long’s. He came up to see us the other day—Alice brought him. Aunt Mary is real old fashioned, you know, and she sat in the kitchen darning and Tommy was playing around the floor. She thought it was getting toward tea time and she said to him:
“‘Tommy, go into the front hall and see if the clock is running, that’s a good boy.’