"Of course. It's the legs that you really do the swimming with."
"That's what I thought. But how can you kick out with both legs when you're standing on them?"
"Oh, that's what's troubling you," said Eric laughing. "But there's nothing difficult in that. The idea in the leg motions of swimming is to bring the legs to the body, isn't it?"
"That's what I always thought."
"It doesn't make any difference if you bring the body to the legs, does it?"
"I—suppose not," the other said, dubiously.
"Of course it doesn't. That's just the idea. You watch the kids going through the drill and you'll get on to it. Why, I can put a bunch wise to swimming, though they're a thousand miles away from any water deep enough to drown in."
Eric had hardly got outside the station when the boys flocked to him in a body. He answered their fusillade of greetings with equal heartiness and then called them to attention.
"Get to business, now!" he called, and the group lined up in fours, each boy about six feet from his neighbor. "Ready!" he called. "One! Hands together, palms to each other. Swing 'em around a little behind the level of the shoulders turning 'em palm outward as you go. This way!" He showed the motion. "At the word 'Two'—bring the hands in to the breast. At 'Three' put the hands forward. All together, now: One! Two! Three!"
The boys followed the motions, some doing it well, but others looking very clumsy and awkward. A dozen times or more the boys went through the drill until a certain amount of regularity began to appear.