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Miss O’Shay’s calling her to the office had been in the nature of a preparation and a
warning. The kind, elderly vice-principal said she did not believe in catching young

ladies unawares, even with honors, so she wished her to know about the coming award.
In making acceptance speeches she wanted her to be calm, prepared, not nervous,
overcome, and frightened. So Nancy Lee was asked to think what she would say when
the scholarship was conferred upon her a few days hence, both at the Friday morning
high-school assembly hour when the announcement would be made, and at the evening
banquet of the Artist Club. Nancy Lee promised the vice-

principal to think calmly about what she would say.
What y
parents, her background, and her life, since such material What you Think?ou Think?
Miss Dietrich had then asked for some facts about her

would probably be desired for the papers. Nancy Lee had Who was Miss O’Shay?
told her how, six years before, they had come up from the
Deep South, her father having been successful in achieving a

transfer from the one post office to another, a thing he had
long sought in order to give Nancy Lee a chance to go to school in the North. Now, they
lived in a modest Negro neighborhood, went to see the best plays when they came to
town, and had been saving to send Nancy Lee to art school, in case she was permitted
to enter. But the scholarship would help a great deal, for they were not rich people.

“Now Mother can have a new coat next winter,” Nancy Lee thought, “because my tuition
will all be covered for the first year. And once in art school, there are other scholarships

I can win.”

Dreams began to dance through her head, plans and ambitions, beauties she would create
for herself, her parents, and the Negro people—for Nancy Lee possessed a deep and
reverent race pride. She could see the old woman in her picture (really her grandmother
in the South) lifting her head to the bright stars on the flag in the distance. A Negro
in America! Often hurt, discriminated against, sometimes lynched—but always there

were the stars on the blue body of the flag. Was there any other flag in the world that
had so many stars? Nancy Lee thought deeply but she could remember none in all the
encyclopedias or geographies she had ever looked into.

“Hitch your wagon to a star,” Nancy Lee thought, dancing
What you Think?ou Think?
home in the rain. “Who were our flag makers?” What y
What thoughts
Friday morning came, the morning when the world would were going on in
know —her high-school world, the newspaper world, her Nancy’s mind , as

mother and dad. Dad could not be there at the assembly to she approached Miss
O‘Shay’s door ?
hear the announcement, nor see her prize picture displayed
on the stage, nor listen to Nancy Lee’s little speech of

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