But Drusie and Jim were too excited at the prospect of a game to listen to her words of warning, and as soon as the rabbits had been hastily bundled into their hutches they raced back to the tree where Hal was waiting for them.
"You shall bowl first, Jim," he said.—"Drusie, you can stand behind the tree and be wicket-keeper, for, unless Jim has improved wonderfully since I went away, most of his balls will be fearful wides.—Helen, you go over there, and mind to throw the balls up sharp."
"Then you are going in first," said Helen, "and we are not going to toss?"
But Hal was busy measuring out the distance at which Jim was to stand, and did not hear her question. Or if he did, he evidently did not consider it worthy of an answer.
"Now then," Hal said, coming back; "I am ready. I am not going to make any runs, you know, as it is too hot; but you others must send the ball up promptly, or else it makes it slow work for me."
Jim's bowling was not very difficult to deal with, and Hal knocked the balls about pretty much as he pleased, and gave the fielders, and especially Helen, plenty of running about.
"Well, at this rate," Drusie said merrily, as she cleverly stopped a ball that was a very bad "wide" indeed, "we shall never get you out."
"No, I don't suppose you will," said Hal; and then he added ungratefully, "That is the worst of playing with a set of girls; one never gets any practice."
Whether Jim was annoyed at being classed as a girl, and was therefore put on his mettle, cannot be said for certain, but at any rate his very next ball hit the tree fair and square, and with so much violence that a piece of the rough elm bark was knocked off.
"Hurrah!" shouted Drusie, clapping her hands; "bowled at last. Who goes in next?"