There were no spectacular acrobatics, such as only the young can perform, but for all-around development they had a most excellent system. A good deal of music went with it, with posture dancing and, sometimes, gravely beautiful processional performances.
Jeff was much impressed by it. We did not know then how small a part of their physical culture methods this really was, but found it agreeable to watch, and to take part in.
Oh yes, we took part all right! It wasn’t absolutely compulsory, but we thought it better to please.
Terry was the strongest of us, though I was wiry and had good staying power, and Jeff was a great sprinter and hurdler, but I can tell you those old ladies gave us cards and spades. They ran like deer, by which I mean that they ran not as if it was a performance, but as if it was their natural gait. We remembered those fleeting girls of our first bright adventure, and concluded that it was.
They leaped like deer, too, with a quick folding motion of the legs, drawn up and turned to one side with a sidelong twist of the body. I remembered the sprawling spread-eagle way in which some of the fellows used to come over the line—and tried to learn the trick. We did not easily catch up with these experts, however.
“Never thought I’d live to be bossed by a lot of elderly lady acrobats,” Terry protested.
They had games, too, a good many of them, but we found them rather uninteresting at first. It was like two people playing solitaire to see who would get it first; more like a race or a—a competitive examination, than a real game with some fight in it.
I philosophized a bit over this and told Terry it argued against their having any men about. “There isn’t a man-size game in the lot,” I said.
“But they are interesting—I like them,” Jeff objected, “and I’m sure they are educational.”
“I’m sick and tired of being educated,” Terry protested. “Fancy going to a dame school—at our age. I want to Get Out!”