"I hate to beat anyone like Jerry and Dana. It's so close——"
Whereupon the excited young people yelled again for "Travis" and again for "King." The crowd gradually dispersed; little groups, arm-in-arm, excitedly talking, passed out through the big door into the spring sunshine. A buoyance in the very air proclaimed that school days were over.
In one of these groups were Ginny Cox, Gyp, Jerry, Pat Everett, Peggy Lee and Isobel. Among them had fallen a constraint. Isobel broke it.
"Ginny Cox, you haven't any more right to that Award than I have! You know you built the snowman and Jerry took the blame so's you could play basketball. She's the winner!"
Each turned, surprised, at Isobel's defence of Jerry's right, marveling at the earnestness in her face.
"Oh—don't," implored Jerry. "I'm glad Ginny won it."
Ginny stamped her foot. "I'm not—I wish I hadn't. I never dreamed I would—honest. What a mess! I wish I'd just turned and told them all about it, but I didn't have the nerve! I'm just yellow." That—from Ginny Cox, the invincible forward! Breathless, the girls paused where they were on the grassy slope near the entrance of Highacres. A great elm spread over them and through its shimmering green a sunbeam shot across Ginny Cox's face, adding to the fire of its sternness.
"Girls——" she spread out her hands commandingly, "I don't know what you think—but I think Jerry Travis is the best ever at Lincoln! She's made me show up like a bad old copper penny 'longside of her. A year ago I could have taken this old Award without a flicker of my littlest eyelash, but just knowing her makes it—impossible! Now—what shall we do?"
Jerry's remonstrance—a little quivery, because she was deeply moved by Ginny's unexpected tribute—was drowned out in a general assent and a clamorous approval of Ginny's words.
"I know——" declared Isobel, feeling that, because she was a Senior, she must straighten out this tangle. "Let's tell Uncle Johnny all about it." Uncle Johnny—to whom had been carried every hurt, every problem since baby days.