such a pitched
battle that when I go over the top, you won't ever care to follow me and
start another issue on the other side. You're dying right now to ask why
I wear my hair in braids down my back instead of in cootie coops over my
ears."

"I don't give a hang," said Donald ungallantly, "as to how you; wear
your hair, but I am coming Saturday to fight, and I don't think Mother
will take any greater interest in the matter than to know that I am
going to do battle with a daughter of Doctor I Strong."

"That is a very nice compliment to my daddy, thank you, said Linda,
turning away and proceeding in the direction of her own classrooms.
There was a brilliant sparkle in her eyes and she sang in a muffled
voice, yet distinctly enough to be heard:

"The shoes I wear are common-sense shoes, And you may wear them if you
choose."

"By gracious! She's no fool," he said to himself. In three minutes'
unpremeditated talk the "Junior Freak," as he mentally denominated her,
had managed to irritate him, to puncture his pride, to entertain and
amuse him.

"I wonder--" he said as he went his way; and all day he kept on
wondering, when he was not studying harder than ever before in all his
life.

That night Linda walked slowly along the road toward home. She was
not seeing the broad stretch of Lilac Valley, on every hand green with
spring, odorous with citrus and wild bloom, blue walled with lacy lilacs
veiling the mountain face on either side; and she was not thinking
of her plain, well-worn dress or her common-sense shoes. What she was
thinking was of every flaying, scathing, solidly based argument she
could produce the following Saturday to spur Donald Whiting in some way
to surpass Oka Sayye. His chance remark that morning, as they stood near
each other waiting a few minutes in the hall, had ended in his asking to
come to see her, and she decided as she walked homeward that his first
visit in all probability would be his last, since she had not time to
spare for boys, when she had so many different interests involved; but
she did decide very finely in her own mind that the would make that
visit a memorable one for him.

In arriving at this decision her mind traveled a number of devious
roads. The thought that she had been criticized did not annoy her as to
the kind of criticism, but she did resent the quality of truth about it.
She was right in following the rules her father had laid down for her
health and physical well-b