"There ought to be Olympic Games in Kingfield every year for all the schools in the town, and the Corporation ought to give the prizes," decided Lesbia. "It could be paid for out of the rates and taxes."
"It will be when schoolgirls get votes," nodded Marjorie emphatically.
Meantime the Corporation did not see its opportunities, and the over-taxed rate-payers of Kingfield would probably have gone on strike at the suggestion of an increase for the purpose of supplying prizes for Olympic Games for school children. Ermie Hall, whose father was a city councillor, did indeed broach the subject at the family breakfast-table, but was squashed flat by her amazed and indignant parent.
"Olympic nonsense," he grunted. "We don't want an extra halfpenny on the rates. I don't know what the present generation is coming to. In my young days we played on the meadows by the river and never bothered our heads about trophies. The Education Committee gives a prize or two for book learning, and quite right too, but the City Council would see the children at Jericho before it offered them rewards for playing. Stick to your lessons, child; they're quite enough to keep you busy, I'm sure. Your last report wasn't up to much, so far as I remember."
"Of course Dad's rather out-of-date," commented Ermie, reporting the interview to an elect circle in Va. "I told him Miss Tatham said 'the physical side of education is as necessary as the mental', but I couldn't get him to see it. He was quite raggy, and jammed the lid on the bacon dish, and told me to get on with my breakfast and not talk any more rubbish. So there you are. What can you do, even if your father is on the City Council?"
"It's hopeless," agreed Calla, with a gusty sigh.
"Put not your trust in corporations," grunted Kathleen gloomily. "I do think the town might do something for us schoolgirls."
It was on the third day after this rebuff that Lizzie Logan covered herself with glory. Lizzie Logan, of all people in the world, the shyest girl in the form, an absolute retiring young she-hermit, who always blushed crimson when she had to answer a question, and generally scuttled out of the dressing-room in a hurry as if she did not want to walk home with anybody else, and looked scared to death if she was asked to join a game in the gymnasium. She came into school one morning carrying a local newspaper, and, after reddening up to the very roots of her hair and down to the margin of her V-shaped blouse, she handed it to Marjorie, murmuring something utterly unintelligible.
"Hello, old sport! What's this for?" demanded Marjorie, opening it at a large advertisement of face powder. "Nothing doing here, thanks! I haven't gone in for titivating my complexion yet. You'll have to be content with me as nature made me. What do you say? An advertisement? Why can't you speak up? Show it to me, then! Oh, I say! Girls, just look here! What do you think of this?"
A circle at once crowded round Marjorie, peeping over her shoulder. Others, on the outer limit, denied a sight of the paper, demanded explanation.