“Well, it’s honest,” said Jess, stubbornly.
“My goodness me! How practical you are, Jess,” exclaimed her mother. “Isn’t anything but bread-and-butter, and such things, appealing to you in life, child?”
Jess did not answer. She was naturally as frivolous of mind as any other girl of her age, only the happenings in their domestic life of the last few weeks had made her far more thoughtful.
And really, the little dove-cote, as Mrs. Prentice had called their new home, was a veritable love of a place! Mrs. Morse had to admit herself that it was a great improvement over the house where they had lived so long.
As it was vacation week, she let Jess go right ahead to settle things while she stuck to the typewriter. And Jess was glad to have plenty to occupy her mind. The suspense of waiting for the committee to decide upon the winner of the prize was hard to endure indeed.
One evening, however, Chet came after her, for there was a big moonlight skating party on Lake Luna. By this time people who had horses and sleighs had made quite a trotting course from Centerport to Keyport in one direction, and from Centerport to Lumberport at the other end of the lake.
There were certain motor enthusiasts, too, who had rigged their cars so that they would travel on the ice; but Chet Belding and Lance Darby had beaten them all. The trotting course hugged the shore, the skaters followed the same course, but farther out on the ice, and beyond, toward the middle of the lake, the iceboats had free swing. And there were several very fast “scooters” and the like upon Lake Luna.
But Laura’s brother and his chum declared that “they’d got ’em all beat to a stiff froth!” And on this night they produced the finished product of their joint work for the last several weeks.
“What do we call it? The _Blue Streak!_” declared Chet. “And that’s the way she travels. We tried her out this morning and——Well, you girls will admit that you never traveled fast before.”
“My goodness me, Laura! Do you think it is safe for us to venture with them?” demanded Jess.
“If Chet brings me home in pieces he knows what mother will do to him,” returned her chum, laughing.
The novel boat certainly attracted considerable attention when the boys ran it out of the old boathouse and pushed it far away from the skating course. It combined the principles of an aircraft with runners of the familiar iceboat.