FOOTNOTE:
[1] Page 253, text ends in mid-sentence in original.
CHAPTER XVII
PRIZE-GIVING
After the excitement of the previous day, Saturday morning felt a little flat and insipid. There was still plenty to do—desks to clean, trunks to pack, the last preparations to be made for to-night's play—a hundred and one things in fact.
The crew of the "Jolly Susan" were not particularly jolly; they were tired, and they hated to take down pictures and curtains, and dismantle their pretty rooms.
Next year wouldn't be the same, they assured each other; they'd never be all together again: Sally May wasn't even sure if she were returning to York Hill. Josephine expected to be back and Jane probably, and Nancy and Judith. Judith was glad that there wasn't any question as to whether Nancy would return. She was rapidly coming to the place where she felt that she simply couldn't live without Nancy. Indeed, the summer holidays, even with Daddy and Mother home again, had seemed long and blank until she had received permission to invite her special friend to spend a month at the Benson's camp in the North.
"Of all the ships that sail on land,
There's none like 'Jolly Susan';
Her crew works well with heart and hand,
And sometimes they're amusin',"
sang Josephine in her deep voice. "It's the number of things I've got to remember that's weighing down my young mind. Judy, do come in here and help me—you're so supernaturally tidy, perhaps you can tell me how to separate the sheep from the goats."