Mr. Meredith accompanied them. "We will be umpires," he declared.
Ada chose Dick for a partner. Rob thought it wasn't much fun playing with Kathie. He was rather careless, and in the first game they were badly beaten, which made Rob altogether out of humor. Why couldn't the girls have stayed on the balcony and talked?
"I can't play!" he said, throwing down his mallet.
Uncle Edward picked it up. "Now, Kathie, let us beat them all to ribbons and fragments!" he exclaimed, gayly, taking her brother's place.
Rob fell out of the ranks to where his uncle stood in the shade of a great tulip-tree.
"Soldiers!" he said, in a low, half-laughing tone.
Rob colored. "I didn't want to play a bit! I wish girls—"
"But a brave soldier goes off of the field after a defeat in good order. If he has done his best, that is all that is required of him."
Rob knew that he had not done his best at all, although he was angry with the mortification of losing the game.