of the girls and Fanny showed her own note and sketch book
and asked how they were keeping theirs. It soon appeared that these five
girls were in a contest of more than ordinary interest. An enterprising
newspaper of a Southern Illinois town had sent these five girls to see
the Fair. They were to be supplied with all needful money, to be
independent of all escorts, to take notes and write up their adventures
and their version of the scenes of the great exposition entirely unknown
to one another, and the paper would publish their reports on their
return. Competent judges were to decide on the merits of their work and
a handsome reward would be given to the successful writer. In an
adjoining town another editor had sent out five boys on the same errand.
The writers must all be between twelve and fifteen. The one out of the
ten who did the best work was to receive a splendid souvenir medal. They
were given ten days of sight-seeing and their whole souls were in the
work.

"But what can be the meaning of these letters C. C. of C. C."

"At home they say these letters mean Crazy Cranks of Cumberland County
but the fact is they have a meaning which is a secret that shall die
with us. We are sworn with each other never to reveal it and to prove
that girls can keep secrets. Of course the letters form our club name,
and it has the word Columbian in it, but that is all we are ever to
tell. We have a constitution and by-laws and regular meetings for mutual
protection and advice in our trials and troubles." This was all quite
interesting as a proof of what the girls in the latter part of the 19th
century could do. Fanny and these girls at once became fast friends, for
she found that they did not live a score of miles from her home, and
that there were a number of people and home places that they all knew.

"But what can these letters "M. K. S. L. N." here at the top of the
badge mean?"

"Oh, that is no secret. They are the initials of our names--Mary, Kate,
Stella, Leila and Nannie."

They said they were not the only ones on a like errand, for they had met
a little girl all the way from Boston, and only fourteen years old, who
had been sent on the same errand by her class in the high school, and
they had heard of girls from the south and west who were coming for the
same purpose.

"We can't lecture," said Mary, "but we are going to help the Women's
Congress prove that girls have just as much brains and courage as boys."

It