"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,"

began Laura, when her mother interposed:

"Indeed? _That_ is why you are so eager always to spend your forenoons with your father on Sat.u.r.day?"

"Oh, Mother! I really _do_ help father in the jewelry-store--don't I, Dad?"

"Couldn't get along without you, daughter," said Mr. Belding, stoutly.

"And he always takes me for a nice bite in a restaurant," pursued the girl, "and then if there's a game, we go to see it."

"Runaways!" said Mrs. Belding, shaking an admonishing finger at them.

"So you encourage her in these escapades, do you, Mr. Belding?"

"Quite so, Mother," he returned. "You're behind the times. Girls are different nowadays--in open practise, at least--from what they were in our day. Of course, I remember when I first saw you----"

"That will do!" exclaimed Mrs. Belding, flushing very prettily, while the children laughed. "We will not rake up old stories, if you please."

Any reference to the occasion at which her husband hinted, usually brought his wife "to time," as Chet slangily expressed it. She agreed to be present at the girls' gymnasium on that last day when the girls used the paraphernalia as they pleased, with Mrs. Case standing by to direct, or admonish, or advise.

Mrs. Belding found in the gallery overlooking the big gymnasium floor many of her neighbors, church friends, or fellow club-members.

"I've been trying to get here for months," one stout lady confided to the Market Street jeweler's wife; "but it does seem to me I never have a minute to spare. But Lluella says that I _must_ come now, for the term is ending. That's Lluella over yonder jumping on that mat. Isn't she quick on her feet?"

"Grace is such a reckless child," complained the lady on Mrs.

Belding's other side. "She's her father all over again--and he's got the quickest temper of any man I ever saw. Gets over it right away, you know; but it's a trial to have a man get mad because the coffee's muddy of a morning."

"Oh, I know all about _that_," sighed the fleshy lady, windily.

"I don't suppose there's really any danger of the children getting hurt here, Mrs. Belding?" proceeded the thin mother.

"I believe not. Laura says there is no danger----"

"Oh, your Laura is a regular athlete!" interrupted the fat woman. "My Lluella says she is just _wonderful_."

"So does my Grace," declared the thin lady on the other side. "She says there's n.o.body like 'Mother Wit,' as she calls Laura."

"I think there is no danger," murmured Mrs. Belding, not sure whether she was glad or sorry that her daughter was so popular.

"Oh, Mrs. Belding! are _you_ here?" broke in rather a shrill voice from the rear. "I told Lily I would come to-day; but really, I hardly knew whether it was the thing to approve of this gymnasium business----"

Mrs. Pendleton's voice trailed off as it usually did before she completed a sentence. She was a small, extremely vivacious, black-eyed woman, much overdressed, and carrying a lorgnette with which she eyed the crowd of girlish figures on the floor below.

"Of course," she murmured to Mrs. Belding, "if _you_ approve----"

"Where is Grace now?" cried the thin lady, suddenly. "Mercy! See where she has climbed to. Do you suppose they can get her without a ladder?"