Page:Girls of Central High on the Stage.djvu/117

Rh down in Monson's old boathouse, near the Girls' Branch Athletic League field and boathouse.

Each day saw the wintry winds grow colder, and soon the ice upon Lake Luna was thick enough to bear. Some of the more reckless boys had skated out to the steamboat channel, which had been sawed from the open water in the middle of the lake, so that the freight boats from Lumberport and Keyport could get to their docks.

Ice of such thickness on Lake Luna at this early date, however, surprised even that apocryphal person, "the oldest inhabitant." And Jess Morse would have been glad of a new coat, or the set of furs that her mother had talked about. When she started for school some mornings, the first blast of keen air off the lake seemed to cut through her like a knife. She wouldn't have had her mother know how really thin her apparel seemed for anything in the world.

And, very wisely, she kept up her gym. work faithfully. A few minutes' vigorous exercise after the regular day's work at school was finished put her in a glow, made her breathe more deeply and "put a shine in her eyes," as Bobby expressed it.

"There isn't a girl in the class who doesn't need brisking up in the gym. this weather—unless it's Eve Sitz," confided Bobby to Laura and