"who's going to win the lincoln award?"

that question was on every tongue at highacres. that interest rivaled even the excitement of class-day and its honors; of the senior reception, commencement itself. it shadowed the accustomed interval of alarm that always followed examinations. everyone knew that the contest was close; no one could conjecture as to whom the honor would fall, for, though one student be a wizard in trigonometry, he might have failed dismally in the simple requirement of setting-up exercises or drinking milk.

"i've eaten spinach until i feel just like a cow out at pasture," declared pat everett disgustedly, "and what good has it done! for i was only eighty-five in english!"

"but think of all the iron in your system," comforted peggy lee. "i hope jerry wins the prize, but i'm afraid it is going to ginny cox. she was ninety-nine in cicero. i wish i had her brains----"

"and her luck! ginny says herself that it is luck--half the time."

"look how she got out of that scrape last winter----" spoke up another girl.

the ravens, who were in the group, suddenly looked at one another.

"it won't be fair if ginny wins the award," was the thought they flashed.

the records for the contest were posted the day before class-day--the last day of the examinations. a large group of boys and girls, eagerly awaiting them, pressed and elbowed about the bulletin board in the corridor while barbara lee nailed them to the wall. gyp's inquisitive nose was fairly against the white sheet.

"vir-gin-i-a cox!" she read shrilly. "jerauld travis only two points behind! and dana king third----"

an uncontrollable lump rose in jerry's throat. she had hoped--she had dared think that she was going to win! she was glad of the babble under which she could cover her moment's confusion; she struggled bravely to keep the disappointment from her face as she turned with the others to congratulate ginny.

the plaudits of the boys and girls were warm and whole-hearted. if any surprise was felt that it had been ginny cox and not jerry travis who had won the award it was carefully concealed.

"we might have known no one could beat you, coxie."

"it was that ninety-nine in old cicero."

"hurrah for ginny!"

dana king trooped up a yell. "lincoln--cox! lincoln--cox!"

through it all ginny cox stood very still, a flush on her face but a distressed look in her eyes. the ginny cox whom her schoolmates had known for years would have accepted the hearty congratulations with a laughing, careless, why-are-you-surprised manner; the ginny cox whom jerry had glimpsed that winter afternoon preceding the basketball game was honestly embarrassed by the turn of events. she had not dreamed she could win--it had been that ninety-nine in cicero.

"ginny cox, you don't look a bit glad," accused one clear-sighted schoolmate.

alas, ginny was not brave enough to clean her troubled soul with confession then and there; she tried to silence the small voice of her conscience; she made a desperate effort to be her own old self, evoking the homage of her schoolmates as she had done time and time again. she answered, uneasily, with a smile that took in jerry and dana king:

"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.

the others agreed--"he's a trustee, anyway," gyp explained--though just how much a trustee had to do with these complicated questions of school honor none of them knew.

and, as though uncle johnny always sprang up from the earth at the very instant his girls needed him, he came up the winding drive in his red roadster. they hailed him. he brought the car to a quick stop.

"uncle johnny, we want you to decide something for us! please get out and come over here."

he stared at the serious faces. what tragedy had shadowed the customary gladness of the last day of school? he let them lead him to the old elm.

"if you'll please sit down and--and pretend you're not--our uncle but sort of a--a judge--and listen, we'll tell you."

"dear me," uncle johnny murmured weakly, sitting down on the slope. "this is bad for rheumatism and gray trousers but--i'll listen."

isobel began the story with the building of the snowman; gyp took it up. dramatically, with an eloquence reminiscent of that meeting of the ravens when the ill-fated lot had fallen to jerry, she explained how "for the honor of the school" jerry had shouldered ginny's punishment. peggy lee interrupted to say that she thought miss gray had made an awful fuss about nothing, but ginny hushed her quickly. then the story came to the winning of the award.

"two points--jerry only needed two points. and she lost ten as a punishment about the snowman. don't you see--she's really the winner?"

uncle johnny had listened to the story with careful gravity; inwardly he was tortured with the desire to laugh. but he could not affront these girls so seriously bent on keeping unsullied that pure white thing they called honor. "oh, youth--youth!" he thought, loving them the more for their precious earnestness.

"and--it's such a mix-up, we don't know what to do. if i knew who had given the prize i'd go straight to him," exclaimed ginny bravely.

uncle johnny straightened his immaculately gray-trousered legs and laid his straw hat down on the grass.

"if that'll help things any--i'm he," he explained with a little embarrassment.

"you? you? really--uncle johnny?" came in an excited chorus.

"yes, me," with a fine scorn for grammar. "i'm the one who's to blame for all the carrots," pinching gyp's cheek. "but you have sort of mixed things up."

"but we had to win that basketball game," cried gyp, "and we couldn't unless ginny played."

"yes--you had to win the basketball game," he nodded with a judicious appreciation.

"you see, lincoln got the cup for the series."

"and jerry paid the price--yes."

"for the honor of the school!"

"then--i'm afraid this is the last payment. you see, girlies, everything we do--no matter what it is--is fraught with consequences. if i were to go over to yonder lake and throw in a pebble--what would we see? little ripples circling wider and wider--further and further. that's like life--our everyday actions are so many pebbles--we have to accept the ripples. it's sometimes hard--but i guess jerry sees the truth."

there was no doubt from the expression of jerry's face but that she saw the truth--uncle johnny's homely simile had made it very clear.

"but i won't take it--that wouldn't be fair." it was the new ginny who spoke. "so it'll go to dana king."

"yes, it will go to dana king." uncle johnny was serious now. "ginny should not have accepted jerry's sacrifice. girls, there's a simple little thing called 'right' that we find in our hearts if we search that's finer than even the precious honor of your school--and gyp, you speak very truly when you say that that is something you must valiantly always uphold. now if you'll let me tell this story of yours to the committee i think it can all be straightened out--and we'll feel better all around."

"and i'm glad it's dana king," exclaimed peggy lee. "garrett said he had had to give up his plans to go to college next fall and he was terribly disappointed and now maybe he won't have to----"

jerry and ginny linked arms as they walked away with the others behind uncle johnny. the shadow dispelled--in youth the sun is always so happily close behind all the little clouds--the girls' spirits went forth, joyously, to meet the interests of the moment, the class oration, the class gift, the class song, isobel's graduating dress, the senior bouquets--the hundred and one exciting things about the proud class of girls and boys who were, in a few days, to pass forever from the school life--graduates.

uncle johnny watched his girls join others and troop away, with light step, heads high. he chuckled, though behind it was a little sigh.

"doc, my boy, you were right--it has made me ten years younger to mix up with these youngsters."

as he turned to go into the building he met barbara lee coming out. he suddenly remembered that the business of the award had to do with barbara lee--somehow, he almost always had, nowadays, to consult her about something! very sweetly she went back with him to her office. he told her what the girls had told him. she listened with triumph in her face.

"i knew jerry travis did not do that. but, oh, aren't they funny?" however, her tone said that these "funny" girls were very dear to her. "it will take something very real out of my life when i leave lincoln."

"what do you mean?" john westley's voice rang abruptly.

"of course--you haven't heard. i have had a wonderful offer from a big export house in san francisco. it's the same firm to which i expected to go last summer--before i came here. you see the road i chose to climb to the stars wasn't entirely along--physical training. my last year in college i specialized in export work. there was a fascination in it to me--it's such a growing thing, such a challenging work, and it carries one into new and untried fields. there's an element of adventure in it----" her eyes glistened. "i shall spend a year at the main office, then they're going to send me into china--because i can speak the chinese language."

john westley stared at her--she seemed like such a slip of a girl.

"and mother is so much better now that there is no reason why i cannot go."

though they had yet to straighten out the matter of the award she quite involuntarily held out her hand as she spoke, and john westley took it in both of his.

"i hope this--is the road to the stars." that did not sound properly congratulatory, so he added, lamely: "i'm glad--if you want to go. but what will we do without you here?"