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 th