p and Isobel. "I don't believe I'm me. And _really, truly_
going back to Highacres! I _can't_ be Jerauld Clay Travis who used to
sit on this rock and watch the little specks come along that silver
ribbon road down there and disappear around the mountain and hate them
because _they_ could go and _I_ couldn't. But it used to be fun
pretending I knew just what the world was like."

Isobel stared curiously at Jerry. "Hadn't you really ever been
anywhere?"

"Oh, yes, in books I'd been everywhere. But that isn't the same as being
places and seeing things yourself."

Gyp laid her fingers respectfully on the rough brown surface of the
great rock.

"Do you suppose it really _is_ a 'wishing-rock'?"

"Goodness, no. But when I was little I used to play here a lot and I
pretended there were fairies--fern fairies and grass fairies and tree
fairies. We'd play together. And when I grew older and began to wish for
things that weren't--here, I'd come and tell the fairies because I did
not want my mother to know, and, anyway, just telling about them made it
seem as nice as having them. So I got to calling this my wishing-rock.
Sometimes the wishes came true--when they were just little things."

"Well, it's funny if it wasn't _some_ sort of magic that made Uncle
Johnny get lost on Kettle and slip right down here in the glade when you
were wishing! And your wish came _true_. And if he hadn't--why, you'd
never have come to Highacres and we'd probably never have found that
secret stairway nor the Bible nor the letter and wouldn't have known
that you were _really_ Jerauld Winton. Oh, it _has_ magic!"

Neither Isobel nor Jerry answered, nor did they smile--after all, more
than one name has been given to that strange Power that directs the
little things which shape our living!

"So, I say, girls, let's wish now, each one of us! A great big wish!
It's so still you could 'most believe there _were_ fairies hiding
'round. I'll wish first."

Gyp sprang to her feet and stood in the exact centre of the flat top of
the rock. She stretched her arms outward and upward in ceremonial
fashion. She cleared her throat so as to pitch a suitably sepulchral
note.

"I wish," she chanted, "I wish to make the All-Lincoln basketball
team--I wish _that_ dreadfully. I wish that I can get through the
college entrance exams.--I don't care how much. I wish to get through
college without "busting." Then I wish that I'll have a perfectly
spliffy position offere