"What is athletic?" asked Rollo.
"Well," replied his father, who was an alumnus (pronounced ahloomnoose) himself, "in a general way it means to wear a pair of pantaloons either eighteen inches too short or six inches too long for you, and stand around and yell while other men do your playing for you. The reputation for being an athlete may also be acquired by wearing a golf suit to church, or carrying a tennis racket to your meals. However, as I was about to say, I do not wish you to work all the time, like a woman, or even a small part of the time, like a hired man. I wish you to adopt for your recreation games of sport and pastime."
Rollo interrupted his father to say that indeed he preferred games of that description to games of toil and labor, but as he concluded, little Thanny, who was sitting on the porch step with his book, suddenly read aloud, in a staccato measure.
"I-be-lieve-you-my-boy,-re-plied-the-man-heart-i-ly."
"Read to yourself, Thanny," said his father kindly, "and do not speak your syllables in that jerky manner."
Thanny subsided into silence, after making two or three strange gurgling noises in his throat, which Rollo, after several efforts, succeeded in imitating quite well. Being older than Thanny, Rollo, of course, could not invent so many new noises every day as his little brother. But he could take Thanny's noises, they being unprotected by copyright, and not only reproduce them, but even improve upon them.
This shows the advantage of the higher education. "A little learning is a dangerous thing." It is well for every boy to learn that dynamite is an explosive of great power, after which it is still better for him to learn of how great power. Then he will not hit a cartridge with a hammer in order to find out, and when he dines in good society he can still lift his pie gracefully in his hand, and will not be compelled to harpoon it with an iron hook at the end of his fore-arm.
Rollo's father looked at the two boys attentively as they swallowed their noises, and then said:
"Now, Rollo, there is no sense in learning to play a man's game with a toy outfit. Here are the implements of a game which is called base-ball, and which I am going to teach you to play."
So saying he opened the package and handed Rollo a bat, a wagon tongue terror that would knock the leather off a planet, and Rollo's eyes danced as he balanced it and pronounced it a "la-la."