The solicitude of the professors was amusing to see.
"You have been over the year's work," Professor Minturn reminded her. "Now you will have to do only a little reviewing, just a little each day, Sarah." It was strange how to faculty and girls alike she had become Sarah instead of Miss Wenner. "You needn't come to class regularly. You can spend that time in study, and I will give you a shorter recitation by yourself."
"Ach, no, I thank you!" cried Sarah. It was only under special stress of surprise or gratitude that she said ach now. "I will come to class, thank you."
The Geography teacher said that he would go over all the Political Geography with her, and Mr. Sattarlee did not say a word to Miss Ellingwood in the evenings until he had heard Sarah's Latin lesson for the next day. It must have been a good deal of a sacrifice, for they had many things to say to each other.
And day by day the spring passed. The maples on the campus budded and burst into full leaf, the oaks and hickories followed more slowly. The air was full of the song of birds and the scent of flowers, and slowly the ruddy color came back to Sarah's cheeks to stay.
But she was strangely nervous. Each hour that brought home and summer nearer brought also the dreaded ordeal of State Board examinations a little closer. One might study faithfully through the year, and pass the faculty examinations brilliantly, and one's efforts count for nothing unless the state also put its seal upon the results. And Sarah became each day more certain that she should not pass.
"It's exactly like a funeral," wailed Ethel Davis. "They come on Wednesday night, seven of them, county superintendents and Normal School principals, and the next morning they begin to examine us, and in the afternoon they examine us again, and then they give us ice-cream for supper when nobody has any appetite for ice-cream, and in the evening sometimes there are left-over examinations, and then we spend the whole night worrying for fear we haven't passed, and they spend the whole of the next day correcting papers,—I'm always glad when it's sweltering hot!—and then they insult us by giving us more ice-cream for supper, and then we go into the chapel to hear whether we have passed."
"I won't pass," said Sarah in despair. "I can't pass."
Ethel laughed.
"Nonsense! Of course you'll pass, child. Why, you have only Spelling and Political Geography and Arithmetic and Physiology to pass. And you always know your Spelling, and you're ahead in Geography. You are a little gosling. Now suppose you had six branches, Latin and History and Physical Geography and Grammar and Drawing and Civil Government. What would you do then, young lady?"