"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 Cæsar!"
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 dangling, a torn hem, a missing button. But if one could win a point for correcting these little failings just the same as in chemistry or higher math., was it not worth trying?
"Whoever do you s'pose thought of it all?" Gyp asked Jerry and Graham. The name of the Lincoln "friend" who was giving the award had been carefully guarded.
Not one of the younger Westleys suspected Uncle Johnny who sat with them and listened unblushingly and with considerable amusement to their varied comments.
"Well, I'll try for it," conceded Graham. "Who wouldn't? Even Fat Sloane says he's goin' to and he just hates to move when he doesn't have to! But five hundred dollars for washing your teeth and walking a mile——"
"And standing well in Cicero," added Uncle Johnny, mischievously.
"Do you s'pose Cora Stanton will be marked off in personal appearance 'cause she rouges and uses a lipstick?" asked Gyp, with a sly glance toward Isobel, who turned fiery red. "I know she does, 'cause Molly Hastings went up and deliberately kissed her cheek and she said she could taste it—awfully!"
"Cora's a very silly girl. Anyway, if she lives up to the rules of the competition she won't need any artificial color—she'll have a bloom that money couldn't buy!"