“You girls need not be troubled,” Mark said kindly. “Your bits will stand out well in the entertainment. More individual, you know. And I think you both do mighty well.”
He took them down to the big offices where the company’s receiving station was situated. Here was an audience room seating at least a hundred people, and with the use of an amplifier and loud speaker the numbers being tried upstairs could be plainly heard.
Jessie was rather disappointed in not being able to speak to Mr. Blair again. Somehow, she felt that the superintendent was interested, in spite of himself, in Bertha Blair. Their last names were the same. Was it not probable that the girl was a relative of the superintendent? At least, it seemed possible.
There was no chance just then to speak of the matter. Her mother and the other women of the hospital committee were discussing excitedly the case of the girls’ chorus, and how discordant it had sounded.
“I do not understand it,” said one of the members of the committee. “You will all agree that at the school celebration Miss Allister had them perfectly trained. I really expected them to do even better here.”
“Oh, perhaps they will be all right when it comes to the night of the concert itself,” rejoined one easy-going person. “They are only girls, you know, after all.”
“But,” declared Mrs. Norwood vigorously, “they are old enough to realize that this is an important thing. They should appreciate the opportunity to aid in a good cause. At least I, for one, do not mean to see the girls make our concert ridiculous. I know what is the matter with that chorus.”
“Bully!” whispered Amy, under her breath.
“I think you speak rather harshly, Mrs. Norwood.” It was Mrs. Moon who spoke. The Moons and the Ringolds “always worked in double harness,” to quote Amy Drew. “Surely we cannot expect the girls to take the matter as seriously as we do.”
“Why not?” Jessie’s mother demanded. “The hospital is for the poor and the sick among women and children of our town. Every girl singing in that chorus is quite old enough to understand that. You heard what Mr. Stratford said. He cannot approve the chorus unless it sounds better.”