The Girls of Central High on the Stage: or, The Play That Took The Prize

“Oh, don’t! Wait till I laugh!” chuckled Bobby, when they were around the corner of the corridor again. “Isn’t that rich?”

“Who was it talking?” asked Jess.

“Talking! Didn’t you recognize that oration?”

“I did not. Mother doesn’t allow me to read any penny-dreadful story papers, magazines or books.”

“Oh, ho! Wait!” gasped Bobby. “That’s Lil.”

“Lily Pendleton?”

“You evidently haven’t heard any of the ‘Duchess of Dusenberry’ before. That’s it!”

“Not part of her play?”

“That is one of the melodramatic bits,” said Bobby, weakly, leaning against the wall for support. “Yes, really, Jess. That is in her play. I’ve heard her recite it before.”

“My goodness me!” gasped Jess.

“It’s not all so bad, I guess. But when she gets flowery and romantic she just tears off such paragraphs as that. ‘Nor can you hide the cloven hoof beneath the edge of Virtue’s robe.’ Isn’t that a peach?”

“Bobby!” exclaimed Jess, breathless herself by now, “you use the worst slang of any girl in Central High.”

“That’s all right. But Lil’s using worse language than I ever dreamed of,” laughed Bobby. “I’ve heard her spouting that sort of stuff time and time again. When she shuts herself up, presumably to study her part in your play, half the time she is reciting her own lines. She likes the sound of ’em. And she had that Pizotti fellow backed in a corner of the front hall at the M. O. R. house the other afternoon, reciting that same sort of stuff to him.

“Repeating her play?”

“Yep. The silly! And he pretending that it was great, and applauding her. I’ll wager that he sees a way to make money out of Lil Pendleton, or he wouldn’t stand for it.”

Jess carried this idea in her mind, although she was not as much troubled by her schoolmate’s foolishness as was Mother Wit. There was a loyalty among the girls of Central High, however, that few ignored. Despite the fact that Jess had never especially liked Lily Pendleton, she would have done anything in her power to help her.

So, that very evening, when she was marketing, she chanced to see something that brought Lil’s affairs into her mind again. She was going into Mr. Vandergriff’s store when she saw a man, bundled in a big ulster, talking with the proprietor.

Griff came forward to wait on Jess, and the girl might not have noticed the man by the desk a second time had she not overheard Mr. Vandergriff say:

“You take advantage of my good nature, Abel. Because I knew you in the old country, you come here and plead poverty. I can’t see your family suffer, for your wife is a nice woman, if you are a rascal!”

“Hard words! Hard words, Vandergriff,” muttered the other.

Jess saw that he was a little man, and the high ulster collar muffled the lower part of his face. But as he turned toward the door she caught a glimpse of a glossy black mustache, and two beady black eyes.

It was Mr. Pizotti!

The girl was so astonished, for the man was shabbily dressed, and shuffled out with several bundles under his arm, that she could scarcely remember what else she wanted to buy when Griff asked her.

“Oh, I say, Griff!” she demanded, breathlessly, and in a whisper. “Who was that man who just went out?”

“Why – oh, that was only Abel Plornish.”

“Abel Plornish!”

“Yep. Poor, useless creature,” said the boy, with disgust. “Or, so father says. He knew Abel in England. You know, father came from London before he was married,” and Griff smiled.

“But this man – are you sure his name is Plornish?”

“Quite, Jess. Why, he plays the violin, or the piano, in some cheap moving picture place, I believe.”

“Then he is a musician?” demanded Jess, breathlessly.

“And a bad one, I reckon. But he has done other things. He’s been on the stage. And he’s even worked in the Centerport Opera House, I believe.”

“And that is really his name?” asked Jess.

“It’s an awful one, isn’t it? Plornish! Nothing very romantic or fancy about that,” laughed Griff. “Now, what else, Jess?”

Jess was so disturbed by this discovery that she could only think to ask Griff one more question. That related to where Plornish lived.

“Somewhere on Governor Street. I think it’s Number 9. Tenement house. Oh, they’re poor, and I believe when he gets any money he spends it on himself. I saw him once on Market Street dressed like a dandy. But when his wife and children come in here they look pretty shabby.”

It wasn’t very late, and, anyway, Jess couldn’t have slept that night without talking the matter over with Mother Wit. She left her basket in the kitchen, saw that her mother was busy at her desk, and ran up Whiffle Street hill to the Belding house.

“Is dat suah yo’, Miss Jess?” asked Mammy Jinny, peering out of the side door when Jess rang the bell. “Come right erlong in, honey. Yo’s jes’ as welcome as de flowers in de Maytime. B-r-r! ain’t it cold?”

“It is cold, Mammy,” said Jess to the Beldings’ old serving woman. “Where’s Laura?”

“She’s done gone up to her room ter listen ter Mars’ Chet an’ dat Lance Darby boy orate dem pieces dey is goin’ to recite in school nex’ week.”

“They are going to act in my play, Mammy!” cried Jess.

“Mebbe so. Mebbe so. But it’s all recitationin’ ter me. Dat leetle Bobby Hargrew was in here and she say it’s jes’ like w’en you-all useter recite at de Sunday night concerts in de Sunday school room. An’ dem pieces yo’ orated den was a hull lot nicer dan w’at Mars’ Chet is sayin’. ’Member how you recited dat ‘Leetle drops o’ water, leetle grains o’ sand’ piece, Miss Jess? Dat was suah a nice piece o’ po’try.”

“And you don’t care for the parts you have heard of my play, Mammy?” asked Jess, much amused.

“Suah ’nuff, now! Did you make up disher play dey is goin’ ter act?” demanded Mammy Jinny.

“I certainly did.”

“Wal, I hates ter hu’t yo’ feelin’s, Miss Jess,” said Mammy, gravely, “but dat ‘Leetle drops o’ water’ po’try was a hull lot better – ter my min’! Ya’as’m! yo kin’ go right up. Yo’ll hear dem-all a-spoutin’ – spoutin’ jes’ like whales!”

And so she did. Chet was reading his lines with much unction while striding up and down Laura’s pretty little room. Lance and Mother Wit were his audience.

“For goodness sake, Chet!” cried Jess, breaking in. “Who told you your part was tragic, and that ‘The Spring Road’ was tragedy?”

“Huh?” questioned Chet, stopping short and blinking at her.

“Do read the lines naturally. Don’t be ‘orating,’ as Mammy Jinny calls it. I guess she’s right. ‘Little drops of water’ is better than all that bombastic stuff. Do, do, my dear, speak it naturally.”

“Hear her!” growled Chet “And she wrote it!”

“I never really meant it to sound like that, Chet,” declared Jess, shaking her head. “I really didn’t. Why! it sounds almost as bad as ‘The Duchess of Dawnleigh.’”

“Wha – what’s that?” demanded Lance.

“Not Lil’s play?” cried Laura. “Have you heard it?”

Jess told what she had heard at the door of the recitation room that afternoon, and they laughed over it.

“Yet I can see very well,” continued Jess, “that you actors can make my words sound just as absurd if you want to. Do, do be natural.”

“That’s what I tell them,” sighed Laura. “I am glad you heard Chet spouting here. One would think he was playing ‘Hamlet,’ or ‘Richard III.’”

Chet was a little miffed. But he soon “came out of it,” as Lance said, and he was so fond of Jess anyway that he would have tried his best to please her.

He grew more moderate in his “orating” and the girls, as critics, were better pleased. Lance took a leaf out of his chum’s book, too, and when he declaimed his lines he succeeded in pleasing Jess and Laura the first time. Besides, Lance was naturally a better actor than Chet.

Mr. Pizotti had taught them how to enter properly, and how to take their cues; but to Jess’s mind he was not the man to train amateurs to speak their parts with naturalness. If Miss Gould had not given so much time to the rehearsals of “The Spring Road” the play would have not been half the success it promised to be. And, of course, the Central High teacher gave her attention mainly to the girls in the cast of characters.

When Lance and Chet lounged off to the latter’s den Jess instantly poured into Laura’s ears her discovery of the identity of “Mr. Pizotti.”

“Well, even at that he may be a man trying to earn his living. Many stage people change their names for business reasons. ‘Plornish’ is not an attractive name, you must admit,” said Laura, smiling. “‘Pizotti’ fits his foreign look.”

“But what is he trying to get out of Lil Pendleton?” demanded Jess, bluntly.

“That’s what troubles me,” admitted Mother Wit. “I believe he is trying to get money out of Lily, or from her folks. And it has to do with Lil’s play. You can see that she believes her play was slighted and that it is a great deal better than yours, Jess.”

“I guess she has a good opinion of it,” returned Jess, laughing.

“Well, suppose this fellow tells her she is right, and that he can get it produced, if she will put up the money?” suggested Mother Wit. “I – I wish Lil would place confidence in me.”

“Tell her mother.”

“No use,” sighed Laura. “I doubt if she would even listen to me. She wouldn’t want to be bothered. You know very well the kind of woman Mrs. Pendleton is.”

“Well, I don’t suppose it is any of our business, anyway,” spoke Jess.

“It is. Lil is one of us – one of the girls of Central High. We have a deep interest in anything that concerns her. The only trouble is,” sighed Laura, “I don’t know just what is best to do.”

CHAPTER XXI – MOTHER WIT PUTS TWO AND TWO TOGETHER

The snow still mantled the ground, and the coasting and ski running remained very popular sports with the girls and boys of Central High. But a day’s hard rain, with a sharp frost after it, had given the iceboating another lease of life, too. Lake Luna was a-glare from the mainland to Cavern Island, and the freight boats had given over running until the spring break-up.

Not that there were no open places in the ice – for there were, and dangerous holes, too. The current through the length of the lake was bound to make the ice weak in places. But near the Centerport shore was a long stretch of open ice that the authorities pronounced safe.

Chet and Lance got the Blue Streak out again and there wasn’t a girl in the junior class who was not envious of Laura and Jess. Skating was tame beside traveling at a mile a minute in an aero-iceboat; and the other ice yachts were not in the same class with the invention of Chet and Lance.

The date set for the production of Jess’s play in the big hall of the schoolhouse approached, however; and preparation for the event was neglected by none of the M. O. R.’s or the other girls and boys in the cast.

Friday evening would see the first production; but the intention was to give a matinee for the pupils of the three Centerport High Schools at a nominal price on Saturday morning, and then a final performance Saturday evening. From these three performances the committee hoped to gain at least a thousand dollars, and possibly half as much more. This would be a splendid addition to the somewhat slim building fund of the M. O. R.’s.

Lily Pendleton went about these days with a very self-satisfied expression of countenance and such a mysterious manner that Bobby said to her:

“Huh! you look like an old hen that’s hidden her nest and thinks nobody’s going to find it, What are you up to now?”

“Don’t you wish you knew?” returned Lily.

Even Hester Grimes admitted that she was not in Lil’s confidence. But the hints Lily dropped troubled Mother Wit.

Laura Belding had not forgotten the discovery her chum had made regarding the identity of the man who called himself “Pizotti.” The stage director would not again attend the performance of “The Spring Road” until the day of the first production. Yet Laura believed that Lily had an understanding of some sort with him.

Governor Street, where Griff told Jess the Plornish family lived, was one of the very poorest in that part of the city, being located at the foot of the Hill and below Market Street itself.

Laura and Jess went shopping one afternoon on Market Street; and despite the fact that it was nipping cold weather, and that the street was a mass of snow-ice, save on the car tracks, they walked home. The sidewalks were slippery, and it took some caution to keep one’s feet; but the chums were so sure of their balance that they stepped along quite briskly.

From Mr. Vandergriff’s store they saw a poorly dressed little girl – perhaps eight years old, or so – dragging a soap box on runners. The box had several packages of groceries in it, besides a bottle of milk.

Just as the child started across Market Street there came a heavy sleigh with plumes, great robes, a pair of dapple gray horses, and a great jingling of bells. The driver did not see the little girl with her box until it was almost too late to pull out.

It all happened in a flash! The peril was upon the child before she or anybody else realized it; and it had passed her, only smashing her sled and spilling her goods, in another moment.

The sleigh, with the horses prancing, swept on and did not even stop for its occupants to note the damage it had done. The child was left crying in the gutter, with the groceries scattered about and the milk making a white river upon the dirty ice.

Laura sprang to aid the little one in picking up her goods; but Jess exclaimed:

“Did you see that, Laura?”

“I should think I did! And they never stopped.”

“But did you see who was in the sleigh?”

“No.”

“It was Lil – and that man was riding with her again.”

“Pizotti?” gasped Laura.

“Yes. Here! give me that bottle. I’ll run across and get another bottle of milk from Mr. Vandergriff. We’ll have to help the little one carry her stuff home. The little sled is smashed to smithereens.”

“All right, Jess. Now, don’t cry, child!” exclaimed Mother Wit, kindly, hovering over the little girl. “You won’t be blamed for this, I know.”

But the child was staring after the sleigh instead of picking up her goods, and with such a wondering look on her face that Laura asked:

“What is the matter with you? What did you see?”

The child still remained dumb, and Laura took her by the shoulder and shook her a little.

“What is your name?” she demanded.

“Maggie,” said the little one, gulping down a sob.

“Maggie what?”

“No, ma’am; Maggie Plornish,” stammered the other.

“My goodness me!” gasped Laura. “Did you see the man in that sleigh?”

“No, ma’am! No ma’am!” cried the little girl, in great haste, and shaking her head violently. “There warn’t no man in the sleigh.”

“Yes there was, child.”

“I didn’t see no man,” declared Maggie, energetically. “It was the lady I seen.”

“Do you know her?” asked Laura, slowly, convinced that the child was deceiving her – or, at least, attempting to do so.

“No, ma’am. I never seed her before.”

It was evidently useless to try to get anything more out of the child on that tack. But Laura was sure that there could not be two Plornish families in Centerport, and if Jess had seen the stage director in Lily Pendleton’s sleigh, it was plain that Maggie had seen him, too. And she had recognized him.

“Where do you live, little girl?” asked Laura, quietly, as she saw Jess returning with a fresh bottle of milk.

“Over ’ere on Governor Street. Number ninety-three, Miss.”

“Lead the way, then,” said Laura, promptly. “We’ll help you carry your things home and explain to mamma how you came to get them scattered. You surely have a mamma, haven’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am. And there’s a new baby. That’s who the milk’s for.”

“Say! how many of you Plornish children are there?” asked Jess, to whom Laura had immediately whispered the intelligence that this child was evidently one of Mr. Pizotti’s progeny.

“Seven, ma’am. But some’s older’n me and they’re workin’.”

“Don’t you go to school?” asked Laura.

“I can’t – not right now. We ain’t got good shoes to go ’round – nor petticoats. And then, the baby didn’t come along until a month ago and he has to be ’tended some while mamma washes and cleans up around.”

Laura looked at Jess meaningly and asked:

“Where’s your papa?”

“Oh! he’s home,” said the child, immediately losing her smart manner of speaking.

“Doesn’t he work?”

“Yes, ma’am. Sometimes.”

“What’s his trade?” asked Jess.

“Huh?”

Maggie Plornish had suddenly become very dull indeed!

“Doesn’t your father work regularly?” explained Laura, kindly. “Hasn’t he any particular work?”

Maggie considered this thoughtfully. Then she shook her head and with gravity replied: “I guess he’s an outa.”

“A what?” gasped Jess.

“An outa, Miss.”

“What under the sun’s an ‘outa’?” demanded Jess, looking at Laura.

But Mother Wit understood and smiled. “You mean he’s ’most always out of work?” she asked.

Maggie Plornish nodded vigorously.

“Yes, ma’am! He’s us’lly outa work. Most reg’larly. Yes, ma’am!”

“Well for mercy’s sake!” gasped Jess, gazing at her chum in wonder. “Can you beat that? If this is the same family – ”

Laura stayed her with a look. “We’ll see,” said Mother Wit. “Lead on, Maggie. We’ll see your mother, anyway.”

CHAPTER XXII – MRS. PLORNISH

Governor Street was just as dirty and squalid as any other tenement-house street in the poorer section of a middle-class city. The street-cleaning department had given up all hope before they reached Governor Street, and the middle of the way was a series of ridges and mountains of heaped-up, dirty, frozen snow.

The snow had been cleaned from the sidewalks, and the gutters freed so that the melting ice could run off by way of the sewers when the sun was kind; but the way to Number 93 was not a pleasant one to travel.

However, Laura and Jess, with little Maggie, reached the door in question in a few minutes, A puff of steamy air – the essence of countless washings – met the girls as the lower door was pushed open. That is the only way the long and barren halls were heated – by the steam from the wash-boilers. For Number 93 Governor Street was one of those tenement houses which seem always to be in a state of being washed, and laundered, and cleaned up; yet which never show many traces of cleanliness, after all.

“We live on the top floor,” said Maggie, volunteering her first remark since starting homeward.

“That doesn’t scare us,” said Laura, cheerfully. “Lead on, MacDuff!”

“No. My name’s Plornish,” said this very literal – and seemingly dull – little girl.

“Very well, Maggie MacDuff Plornish!” laughed Mother Wit. “We follow you.”

The little girl toiled up the stairs like an old woman. Laura and Jess caught glimpses of other tenements as they followed the child and saw that there was real poverty here. Jess began to compare her situation with that of these humble folk, and saw that she had much to be grateful for.

She was troubled over the lack of a new party dress, perhaps, or because there were times when she and her mother were pinched for money. But the bare floors and uncurtained windows of these “flats,” with the poor furniture and raggedly clothed children, spelled a degree of poverty deeper than Jess Morse had imagined before.

A sallow woman met them at the door of one of the top-floor flats. She was as faded as her calico dress. Her arms were lean and her hands wrinkled, and all the flesh about her finger nails was swollen and of a livid hue, from being so much in hot water.

Indeed, two steaming tubs stood in the kitchen into which the girls of Central High were ushered. A big wash was evidently under way, and Mrs. Plornish wiped her arms and hands from the suds, as she invited the girls in, staring in amazement at one and another meanwhile.

“Your little Maggie met with an accident, Mrs. Plornish,” said Laura, pleasantly, putting the packages she had carried upon the table. “And so we helped her home with her groceries.”

“And Mr. Vandergriff says never mind the bottle of milk that was spilled,” explained Jess, setting the second bottle on the table.

“You come from Mr. Vandergriff?” asked the woman, her faded cheek coloring a trifle.

Laura explained more fully. Mrs. Plornish seemed to have had her motherly instincts pretty well quenched by time and poverty.

“Yes’m. I expect Maggie’ll git runned over and killed some day on that there Market Street,” she complained. “But I ain’t got nobody else to send. Bob and Betty, and Charlemagne, air either at school or to work – ”

“Where is your husband?” asked Laura, briskly. “Is he working?”

“Off an’ on,” said the woman, but looking at the visitors a little doubtfully.

“Engaged just at present?” pursued Laura.

“Look here, Miss,” said Mrs. Plornish, “air you charity visitors? Though you be young.”

“We have nothing to do with charities,” Laura said. “We just came to help Maggie. I didn’t know but I might know of something for your husband to do if he is out of work.”

“He ain’t. He’s got a job right now. And I guess it will turn out to be a good one,” spoke Mrs. Plornish, and she smiled with sudden satisfaction.

“It seems to please you, Mrs. Plornish,” said Jess, quickly. “I hope you will not be disappointed. Where is he working?”

“Oh, this job o’ work is goin’ to take him out o’ town for a while,” returned the woman, doubtfully.

“Indeed? To Lumberport?” asked the insistent Jess.

“No.”

“To Keyport, then?”

“I can’t tell you. It – it’s a secret – that is, it’s sort of a private affair. Abel is a very smart man in his way – and this – er – this job will bring him considerable money, I expect. I hope we’ll all be better off soon.”

She seemed excited by the prospect of her husband’s secret employment, yet she was doubtful, too. Laura and Jess looked at each other and they both came to the same conclusion. If Abel Plornish, alias “Mr. Pizotti,” was scheming to get some money from the Pendletons, Mrs. Plornish knew at least a little something about it.

But Laura did not know how to get this information from the woman; nor did the girl believe that it was really right for her to do so. But Mother Wit thought it would do no harm to help the family if she could do so without offending. She drew forth her purse and looked gently at Mrs. Plornish.

“You won’t mind if I give you something to spend on Maggie?” asked Mother Wit, in her most winning way. “Do let me help her, Mrs. Plornish! I really mean no offense.”

“Why, you look an honest enough young lady,” said the woman.

“Maggie says she needs shoes so that she can go to school. Don’t you think you can spare her for at least a part of the time?”

“Mebbe I’d better, Miss. The truant officer’s been around once,” said Mrs. Plornish. “But the baby’s so small – ”

“If your husband is as successful as you think he’ll be,” interposed Jess, sharply, “you’ll be able to afford to let her go, eh? Then you will not have to work so hard yourself.”

“That’s right, Miss!” cried Mrs. Plornish, briskly.

Laura put the money for Maggie’s shoes into her hand. “I hope we may come and see Maggie again?” she said, pinching the thin cheek of the little girl, who had been staring at them all this time, without winking, and without a word.

“Sure you can, Miss! And thank you. Thank the young lady, Maggie,” ordered Mrs. Plornish.

Maggie gave a funny, bobbing little courtesy as the older girls went out. Laura and Jess said nothing to each other until they reached the street. Then the latter declared:

“She knows something about it.”

“About what?” asked Laura.

“Whatever it is that’s going on. Whatever it is ‘Pizotti’ is doing.”

“And we know he is staging your play for the M. O. R.’s,” said Laura, quietly. “That’s all we do know at present.”

“But there’s something else.”

“That we don’t know. I wish we did.”

“And he’s going out of town!”

“Perhaps that is not so,” returned Laura, thoughtfully. “Of course his wife knows that he works under an assumed name. That is no crime, of course – ”

“But there’s something odd about it all,” cried Jess.

“All right. How are we going to find out? Lil won’t tell us – ”

“And it is her business – or her mother’s,” said Jess. “And that’s a fact.”