Page:Girls of Central High on the Stage.djvu/20

10 most like a candle, Jess had made her way into Market Street and to Mr. Closewick's grocery store near the corner. She carried a basket on her arm and she had given the clerk rather a long list of necessary things, although she had studied to make the quantities as modest as possible. The clerk had put them all up now and packed them into the basket and stood expectantly with the list checked off in his hand.

"Two dollars and seven cents, Miss Jess," he said.

"I'll have to ask you to add that to our bill," said the girl, flushing. "Mother is short of money just now."

"Wait a moment, Miss Jess; I'll speak to Mr. Closewick," said the clerk, seemingly as much embarrassed as the girl herself, and he stepped hastily toward the glass-enclosed office at the rear of the store.

But the pursy old man with the double chin and spectacles on his forehead, the height of which the wisp of reddish-gray hair could not hide, had observed it all. He got down ponderously from his stool and squeaked out behind the long counter in his shiny boots.

"I sent my bill over to your mother this morning, Miss Jess," he said. "It is more than twenty dollars without this list of goods