“Not for these girls,” interjected Harriet. “These girls are not eating candy at the present time. We are living plainly, I would have you understand. Tommy, I want you to help me for a little while. You are small and thin. Do you wish to assist me in working out something?”
“Yeth.”
“Then I wish you would stand up and let me see if I can hit you with the tennis ball. I want to try an experiment.”
“I gueth not. You had better try to hit a tree if you want thomething to hit. I don’t like thuch experimenth.”
“I’ll be the easy mark,” offered Sam. “You may hit me in the face, too, if you want to and can. Only don’t volley for my game nose. It is still a little tender from the wollop Grace gave it with her racquet that time. You won’t throw your racquet at me, will you?”
“Indeed, not,” answered Harriet with a merry laugh. “I just want to practise for accuracy.”
Sam posed as a mark for Harriet shortly after dinner, though she permitted him to try to avoid her returns. Sam succeeded part of the time, but not all of the time. Harriet had a little mystifying way of sending the ball at him and reaching almost any spot on his body at which she chose to aim. George said it was because Sam was too slow to get out of the way. Harriet smiled but made no denial. There was no regular practice play, however, until very late in the afternoon. Then for a time the girls limbered up on the court while the boys were placing the net.
Then they decided to play a set. Jane and Hazel won the first two games of the set, the other four games going to Harriet and Tommy. The second set, by agreement, was played much faster than the first had been. The girls really disposed of this set with a dash and spirit that they had not displayed at any other previous practice.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” declared George. “I didn’t think you had it in you to go through with it like that. That was a dandy, but not yet fast enough to win the big cup.”
Harriet laughed at him with that teasing laugh that always made George feel like chewing the brim of his hat to keep from making remarks. Harriet suggested that they play a slower game this time and try to put into practice all the tricks they had learned from Mr. Disbrow, to rehearse everything, in fact, that they held in reserve for their opponents when the time came to play the big games.