By the middle of the next week Hester was playing regularly in her old position on the basketball team. Roberta Fish had dropped back into the second team with all the grace of the sweet-tempered girl she was.
“I’m only too glad she’s come back,” said Roberta, referring to Hester Grimes. “It’s much more important that Central High should win that beautiful silver trophy than for me to have the honor of playing on the champion team.”
“You’re a good sort, Roberta,” said Bobby Hargrew, admiringly. “Now, I’d be mad if they’d asked me to step down and let somebody take my place.”
“No,” said Laura. “You’d be loyal, too, Bobby.”
“And that’s the A. B. C. of athletics, child,” said Nellie Agnew, remembering very clearly what the doctor had said to her weeks before on the subject.
“‘A. B. C.,’ indeed!” sniffed Bobby. “You make me feel like a primary kid again, I declare!”
Jess Morse began to laugh. “Some of these primary kids, as Bobby calls them, are pretty smart. Allison Mapes—you know her?—who teaches the first grade, was telling of a little Bohemian boy in her class. He is smart as a whip, but English is quite a paralyzing language to him. She asked him the other day:
“‘Ivan, what is a calf?’
“And the boy answered: ‘Missis, that’s the child of a cow and the back of your leg!’”
When the laugh over this had subsided Laura spoke seriously. They were talking in one of the small offices of the school, having retired to discuss the forthcoming games.