of money to be spent in an
educational way, most of the pupils considered it very seriously.

"Ginny Cox has the best chance 'cause she always has the highest marks
and she's on all the teams."

"It isn't just being on _teams_," contradicted another girl, studying
one of the slips of paper which had been distributed and upon which had
been printed the rules covering the competition. "It's the number of
hours spent in the gym, or in out-of-door exercise. And you get a point
for setting-up exercises and for walking a mile each day. And for
sleeping with your window open! _Easy!_"

"And for drinking five glasses of water a day," laughed another.

"And for eating a vegetable every day. And for drinking a glass of
milk."

"That lets _me_ out. I just loathe milk."

"Of course--so do I. But wouldn't you drink it for an award like
_that_?"

"Look, girls, you can't drink tea or coffee," chimed in another.

"And you get a point for nine hours' sleep each school night! That'll
catch Selma Rogers--she says she studies until half-past eleven every
night."

"I suppose that's why it's put in."

"And a point for personal appearance--and personal conduct in and out of
school! Say, I think the person who thought up _this_ award had
something against us all----"

Patricia Everett indignantly opposed this. "Not at all! Miss Lee, and
she's the chairman of the Award Committee, said that the purpose of the
award is to build up a Lincoln type of a pupil whose physical
development has kept pace with the mental development. _I_ think it will
be fun to try for it, though eating vegetables will be lots worse than
the bridge chapter in Caesar!"

Jerry Travis, too, had made up her mind to work for the award. She had
read the rules of the competition with deep interest; here would be an
opportunity to make her mother and Little-Dad proud of their girl. And
it ought not to be very hard, either--if she could only bring up her
monthly mark in geometry! She had, much to her own surprise, lived
through the dreaded midwinter examinations, though in geometry only by
the "skin of her teeth," as Graham cheerfully described his own
scholastic achievements.

Jerry found that Gyp had been carefully studying the rules--Gyp who had
never dreamed of trying for any sort of an honor! But poor Gyp found
them a little terrifying; like Pat Everett she hated vegetables and she
despised milk; there was always something awry in her dress, a shoelace
dang