“I don’t want to see ’em!” exclaimed the old gentleman. “Think I’m hanging around here to see a parcel of girls be as unladylike as they can? Let me tell you when I was young, girls didn’t have athletics—and yell like Indians while they were at it!”
“But don’t you think the girls to-day are a lot nicer than the girls used to be?” asked Laura, demurely.
“No, I don’t, Miss!” But the Colonel had to smile a little now. Laura, was so unruffled and smiling herself that he could not wholly maintain his “grouch.” Besides, he had admired the girl immensely ever since she had shown she had so good a headpiece.
“Why, even my mother says that we girls are much better physically than the girls of her day. We work much harder in school, but we do not get nervous and ‘all played out,’ as the saying is. She believes it is due to our physical exercises and our outdoor lives. The games and exercises we have in this athletic field are making us stronger and abler to meet the difficulties of life. Don’t you believe so, sir?”
“I must confess I had never given it much thought,” admitted the old gentleman, eyeing her curiously.
“Don’t you see how much healthier and stronger we are than even the girls were ten years ago?” she persisted.
“I never gave much attention to girls—only to one girl,” he replied, with a drop in his voice and a gloomy brow.
“You mean your daughter—Mrs. Kerrick?”
“Poor Mabel!” the old man sighed. “Yes. She never was given to activities of any kind—save social activities. She has never been well.”
“But suppose she had ‘gone in’ moderately for athletics when she was my age?” suggested Laura.