The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross

The Girls of Central High Aiding
the Red Cross [with accents]

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Title: The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross Or Amateur
Theatricals for a Worthy Cause
Author: Gertrude W. Morrison
Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8137] [Yes, we are more than one

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The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross
OR
AMATEUR THEATRICALS FOR A WORTHY CAUSE
BY
GERTRUDE W. MORRISON

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
THE ODDEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED II THE RED
CROSS GIRL III ODD! IV THE MYSTERY MAN V SAND IN THE
GEARS VI THE BANK-NOTE VII SOMETHING EXCITING VIII
THE FOREFRONT OF TROUBLE IX THE ICE CARNIVAL X BUT
WHO IS HE? XI A REHEARSAL XII BUBBLE, BUBBLE XIII
MOTHER WIT HAS AN IDEA XIV CHAINS ON HIS WHEELS XV
PIE AND POETRY XVI EMBER NIGHT XVII A STARTLING
ANNOUNCEMENT XVIII WHERE WAS PURT? XIX LAURA
LISTENS XX TWO THINGS ABOUT HESTER XXI AND A THIRD
THING XXII THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST PURT XXIII THE
LAST REHEARSAL XXIV MR. NEMO, OF NOWHERE XXV IT IS
ALL ROUNDED UP

CHAPTER I

THE ODDEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED
"Well, if that isn't the oddest thing that ever happened!" murmured
Laura Belding, sitting straight up on the stool before the high desk in
her father's glass-enclosed office, from which elevation she could look
down the long aisles of his jewelry store and out into Market Street,
Centerport's main business thoroughfare.
But Laura was not looking down the vista of the electrically lighted
shop and into the icy street. Instead, she gave her attention to that
which lay right under her eyes upon the desk top. She looked first at the
neat figures she had written upon the page of the day ledger, after
carefully proving them, and thence at the packet of bills and piles of
coin on the desk at her right hand.
"It is the oddest thing that ever happened," she affirmed, as though in
answer to her own first declaration.
It was Saturday evening, and it was always Laura's duty to straighten
out her father's books for him on that day, for although she was a high
school girl, she was usually so well prepared in her studies that she
could give the books proper attention weekly. Laura had taken a course
in bookkeeping and she was quite familiar with the business of keeping
a simple set of books like these.
She never let the day ledger and the cash get far apart. It was her
custom to strike a balance weekly, and this she was doing at this time.
Or she was trying to! But there seemed to be something entirely wrong
with the cash itself.
She knew that the figures on the ledger were correct. She had asked her
father, and even Chet, her brother, who was helping in the store this
evening, if either of them had taken out any cash without setting the
sum down in the proper record.
"It is an even fifty dollars--neither more nor less," she had told them,
with a puzzled little frown corrugating her pretty forehead.

They had both denied any such act--Chet, of course, vigorously.
"What kind of hardware are you trying to hang on me, Mother Wit?" he
demanded of his sister. "I know Christmas will soon be on top of us,
and a fellow needs all the money there is in the world to buy even one
girl a decent present. But I assure you I haven't taken to nicking papa's
cash drawer."
"I don't know but mother is