Part 3 (1/2)
”How odd!” murmured Laura and Jess, together. And the latter added: ”Bobby said he seemed mad when he found out _we_ were going to Acorn Island.”
”Well,” drawled Lance, ”he seemed sort of relieved when I told him we fellows were going to camp on the mainland.”
”Funny he should trouble his head about us out of school hours at all,” Chet said again.
His sister made no further comment upon the professor's queer actions.
Nevertheless her curiosity was aroused regarding the old instructor's sudden interest in anything beside Latin exercises and Greek roots.
CHAPTER III
VISITORS' DAY
The afternoon preceding the closing exercises of Central High was Visitors' Day at the girls' gymnasium. This was an entirely different affair from the recent Field Day when Laura Belding and her particular friends had so well distinguished themselves.
On _that_ occasion the general public had been invited. Visitors' Day might better have been called ”Mothers' Day.” Mrs. Case personally invited all those mothers who had shown little interest, or positive objection, to their daughters' athletic activities.
For to the Centerport ladies the fact that their daughters were being trained ”like prize-ring fighters,” as one good but misled mother had said in a letter to the newspaper, was not only a novel course but was considered of doubtful value.
”And you must come, Mother,” begged Laura, when Mrs. Belding seemed inclined to make excuses. Mrs. Belding was one of the mothers who could not approve of her daughter's interest in athletics.
”Really, Laura, I am not sure that I should enjoy myself seeing you crawl about those ladders like a spider--or climbing ropes like a sailor--or turning on a trapeze like a monkey--or otherwise making yourself ridiculous.”
”Oh, Mother!” half-laughed Laura. Yet she was a little hurt, too.
”Aw, Mother, don't sidestep your plain duty,” said Chet, his eyes twinkling.
”Chetwood! You know very well that I do not approve of many of these modern dances. I certainly do not 'sidestep'”----
”That isn't a dance, Mother,” giggled Laura.
Her husband chuckled at the other end of the table. ”My dear,” he said, suavely, ”you should keep up with the times----”
”No, thank you. I have no desire to. Keeping up with the times, as you call it, has made my son speak a language entirely unintelligible to _my_ ear, and has made my daughter an exponent of muscular exercises of which I cannot approve.”
”Pshaw!” said her husband, easily. ”Basketball, and running, and rowing, and the exercise she gets at that gymnasium, aren't going to hurt Mother Wit.”
”There you go!” exclaimed his wife. ”You have begun to apply to Laura an appellation which she has gained since all this disturbance over athletics among the girls, has arisen.
”I can no more than expect,” went on Mrs. Belding, seriously, ”that, dissatisfied with basketball and the like, the girls will become baseball and football--what do you call them, Chetwood? Fans?”
”Quite right, mother,” Laura hastened to answer instead of her brother. ”And all we girls of Central High are fans already when it comes to baseball and football. I'd like to belong to a baseball team, myself, for one----”
”Laura!” gasped her mother, while her father and Chet burst out laughing.
”It's the finest game in the world,” declared Laura, stoutly.
”Hear! hear!” from Chet.
”I've been to see the games a lot with father Sat.u.r.day afternoons,”