The wild uproar of the gymnasium entertainment did not compare in intensity with the suppressed excitement of the day following examinations. There were no school-exercises except a chapel-service in the morning, which the students wished might be longer, since it was all they had to occupy them during the long and tedious day. The girls wandered about from room to room, the Seniors, who were to have a vacation of a week before Commencement, packing their trunks half-heartedly, the others doing nothing. It did not seem worth while to begin anything until one knew whether one was to return.

The Board was closeted down in the principal's office, where they worked from breakfast till dark. Sometimes a student, passing through the hall when the door was opened, saw them laboring at long tables, each with a great pile of papers before him and a pitcher of water hard by. If the student had hoped for hot weather so that the Board might be uncomfortable, he prayed now much more fervently that their tempers might not be influenced by the heat.

"They say the marks go down five points whenever the thermometer goes up one," laughed Edward Ellis.

Sarah slept until long after breakfast-time. When she woke Miss Ellingwood was writing at her desk.

"Am I put out?" asked Sarah faintly.

"Not yet," answered Miss Ellingwood. "Here is some breakfast for you."

Once in the history of the school, the Board had finished its work before supper, and the students who were wandering about the fields back of the campus out of hearing of the bell had to get their reports from Dr. Ellis himself,—a sad duty for those who had failed. Since then no one ever wandered away in the afternoon, for fear that the ominous bell might ring and he not be there to hear. Usually it did not ring till eight o'clock, and sometimes it was ten. By that time hopes had often sunk very low, and there were strange rumors flying about.

"They say that ten Seniors have failed, and half the Junior class," some one would announce. "They're debating about them now. Dr. Ellis thinks that some of them can be changed."

The Secretary always shook his head gloomily when applied to.

"I never knew such a year," was his invariable response; and it never occurred to any one to suppose that he meant a good year.

As usual there was ice-cream for supper. Gertrude Manley pretended to wave it aside.

"At dinner I might have been able to eat a few mouthfuls," she groaned. "But now! No, thank you!"

It was with a great sigh of relief that Sarah watched her take a second helping. Perhaps they were not as despairing as they seemed. It would be bad enough if she should not pass, but it would be much worse if Ethel and Gertrude should fail.

Sarah spent the hours after supper wandering up and down the hall which led to the chapel. She did not expect to pass; the calmer thought of to-day had convinced her that she had been the victim of some strange mistake in the giving out of the papers. It was altogether her own fault. She should have told them that she was not a Junior.

In spite of her certainty, however, she was wildly excited. No one could have been in the school for a minute and have remained calm. Miss Ellingwood was excited, and Dr. Ellis and Eugene, who, when he passed an anxious boy in the hall, drew his finger across his throat to signify the operation in which the State Board was engaged.

Presently Ethel and Gertrude came down the hall.

"We were looking for you, Sarah."

"I don't believe it will ever ring," cried Sarah.

"Hark!" said Ethel.

They heard the first faint ring of the gong on the boys' side of the building, then the bell rang sharply above their heads.

"Our fate is sealed!" cried Gertrude. "We are doomed. Come on to the slaughter!"

She seized Ethel by one hand and Sarah by the other, and they were the first to reach the chapel-stairs. Behind them doors were opening, and there was the sound of hurrying steps and excited voices.

"Let us sit here on the last row," suggested Sarah.

"So that we can be more easily borne hence," laughed Gertrude.

The State Board was already seated on the platform. They were all talking and laughing as heartily as they had the day before. The Chairman carried a paper in his hand. He made some joke about it, and his colleagues all laughed; then he laid it down on a long box on the table by his side.

"The names are on that paper," whispered Ethel.

"Yours is," answered Sarah, "but mine isn't. I know that much."

Mercifully Sarah was not kept long in suspense. The students had never gathered so quickly. The doors were closed, and then Dr. Ellis announced that the Chairman would read the names of those who had passed.

The brown-bearded Chairman rose slowly, still laughing with the man next to him. Then he looked out solemnly over the audience and the audience looked back solemnly at him. He lifted the paper from the table, looked at it solemnly too, and then laid it back.

"Nobody passed, perhaps," whispered Sarah.

The Chairman had begun to speak.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," he said. "I am not going to hurt you." At which there was a great laugh, and then a settling back into easier positions. "You all look so frightened and so sure that you have failed, that you make us feel that our judgment is at fault and that we have made a mistake to let any of you through. There, that's better! Once, a good many years ago, when I was a little boy—" He stopped and looked at them comically over his glasses—"Which would you rather have first, the story about the time when I was a little boy, or the names? All in favor of the names say 'Ay.'"

The response left no room for doubt upon that question.

"Well, then. We'll take the sub-Juniors first. Those who have passed are—" The falling of the proverbial pin would have made a loud noise in the silence which ensued. Sarah felt a frightened thrill run up and down her back. Suppose she should pass! How glorious it would be! Then William and Laura would feel that their faith in her had been warranted, that their sacrifice was not in vain. It would encourage the twins to study, it would astonish the neighbors. Sarah leaned forward, one hand tight in Ethel's, one in Gertrude's. Suppose she should pass!

It seemed to her hours before she leaned limply back. Her name was not on the list. She had been mad to expect it. Mabel Thorn's was there and Ellen Ritter's; she had thought they were stupid and lazy, yet they had passed. The girl who had packed her ink-bottle in her trunk had passed. Even she could answer State Board questions. Any of these would have had sense enough to object if they had been given Junior papers instead of some of their own.

She felt her companions' hands tighten sympathetically on her own, and she struggled bravely to keep back the tears. She would not cry. Not even if they expelled her would she cry.

The cheerful voice went on reading. Ethel and Gertrude had passed; they let go of Sarah's hands for an instant to clasp each other's, and smiled at each other above her head, while she looked at them sadly. They were Middlers now, and in another year they would be Seniors with all the Senior privileges. They would study Psychology and Methods of Teaching, and they would begin to teach in the Model School and lead the gymnasium classes, and soon they would be gone. Even if Sarah were allowed to come back to redeem herself, they would be too far ahead to think of her. She would have to make friends anew, and—

The list of Juniors was finished and the speaker folded his paper.

"The Middlers have all passed," he said, smiling, and a wild cheer responded. The excitement was no longer to be kept under control.

"As for the Seniors—" The Chairman paused. The cheer died down into silence. It was time once more to drop the proverbial pin.

"They have all passed too."

Then Bedlam suddenly broke loose. Boys and girls were on their feet, there was cheer after cheer, and Dr. Ellis sat smiling and making no effort to subdue them. Perhaps it would have been a relief to him to join. His pupils had never done so well.

After a long time the Chairman held up his hand.

"I have still more to say," he declared. "And after I am through with the announcements you will still have to listen to my story about the time when I was a little boy. But first I have a story to tell about a little girl.

"When we are boys and girls, we are taught to think that our teachers are infallible, that they can never make mistakes, and it is good for us to think so. It is equally good for us to find out later that teachers and grown-up people have made mistakes. It makes us feel easier about our own.

"There is a young lady in this school who has found this out. She came here to learn something about books, after a hard experience had taught her many more valuable lessons, and this is the way the teachers treated her. Instead of giving her as little to do as possible, and watching to see that she played, and taking her books away from her by force if necessary, they began to give her extra work to do. It wasn't altogether their fault, because they were not accustomed to having to restrain pupils. Overstudy is a little like smallpox. Many doctors wouldn't recognize smallpox because they have never seen a case. It was the same way with these teachers who let this girl work too hard.

"That, one would think, was enough hardship for one year. But worse things were to happen to her.

"Yesterday—and this story is a terrible confession for a State Board official to make—yesterday the State Board gave her the wrong papers. The principal told us about her,—I suppose he meant us to mark her as easily as we could. But the examiner who distributed the sub-Junior papers thought that the principal had said she was a sub-Junior, and the examiner who distributed the Junior papers thought she was a Junior, and so both gave her papers, and she—"

Gertrude Manley felt suddenly a head against her shoulder.

"Why, Sarah!" she whispered, and saw only a bit of scarlet cheek.

"And she," the Chairman went on, "being accustomed to having extra work, said nothing and sawed wood, with this result." He unfolded again the paper in his hand.

"She passed the Arithmetic, Physiology, and Spelling which she was expected to pass, with good marks. She did not take the sub-Junior Political Geography, but she passed the Junior Physical Geography and the Junior Latin and the Junior History with good marks. In these branches I believe she did the extra work during the winter. In the Junior Grammar, which includes the sub-Junior Grammar, she just made passing mark. We tried to persuade ourselves that she hadn't really passed, but she was too much for us. Even when a fern and some steps were thrust before her to be drawn, she did not falter but drew them. The Civil Government paper she did not attempt, which surprised us greatly. It was very inconsiderate of the teacher of Civil Government not to give her extra lessons too. I think Dr. Ellis should speak to him about it. And now, what shall we do with this girl?"

Not one of the gasping students offered a suggestion.

"Well, there are several possibilities," went on the Chairman. "We can say that inasmuch as she hasn't passed her sub-Junior Geography, she hasn't passed at all and will have to take the year over. But that doesn't seem fair. Or we can say that she is a Junior in spite of the Geography. The only objection to that is that she will grow very lazy next year with nothing new to study but Civil Government. Not all of us approve of that. Then there is one other plan. We can make her a Middler, with the provision that she makes up the Civil Government some time within the next two years. It is unprecedented, but it can be done. What does the school think of this plan?"

The pupils looked about in complete mystification. Was it all true, or was it only a story? Then a few of them began to guess whom the Chairman meant. One of them was Edward Ellis.

"I think she should be made a Middler," he said.

"Very well, so be it." The Chairman opened the box at his side. "I wish that State Boards did not change, so that we might all come back here next year and make it easy for this young lady; but since we can't, we wish to apologize to her, and to give her a little present to remember us by." He lifted a great handful of roses from the box. "And now, good-by, and good luck." And he stood still with the bouquet in his hands, forgetting apparently the promised story of his boyhood.

"Well," he said, with a smile, his voice more Pennsylvania-German than ever, "where is this Sarah Wenner, about whom I have been talking?"

Ethel Davis's voice shook.

"Go and get your flowers, youngster."

"I can't."

"You must. Run along."

She rose to let Sarah pass, and then some one near by stood up to see, and in a moment the school was on its feet and some one was singing. It was the old tune which for many years had closed the session of the State Board, the long-metre doxology. They finished the first line as the Chairman put the flowers into Sarah's arms. Then, seeing what a little girl she was, he laid his hand on her shoulder and kept her beside him, while he startled her with his great bass.

And Sarah gave up trying to puzzle out how what the Chairman said could be true. She saw Ethel smiling at her and Gertrude waving her hand, and Professor Minturn and Miss Ellingwood and Mr. Sattarlee laughing together at the back of the room, and she grew a little less frightened and clasped her flowers a little more tightly in her arms. The troubles of the past year seemed to dwindle, the joys to grow, until it was all joy and happiness, and she lifted up her voice and sang out with all her heart.