Larry sprang to his feet, and without a glance at his anxious tormentor said, “Come on, Joe, let's go for a hunt in the woods.”
Jane looked wistfully after the departing boys. “I wish they would ask us, Nora. Don't you? I think he is nice when he isn't mad,” she said. To which Nora firmly assented.
A breeze from the west and the arrival of the High School team, resplendent in their new baseball uniforms, brought to the limp loiterers under the trees a reviving life and interest in the day's doings.
It was due to Jane that Sam got into the game, for when young Frank Smart was searching for a suitable left fielder to complete the All Comers team, he spied seated among the boys the little girl.
“Hello, Jane; in your usual place, I see!” he called out to her as he passed.
“Hello, Frank!” she called to him brightly. “Frank! Frank!” she cried, after the young man had passed, springing up and running after him.
“I am in a hurry, Jane; I must get a man for left field.”
“But, Frank,” she said, catching his arm, for young Smart was a great friend of hers and of her father's. “I want to tell you. You see that funny boy under the tree,” she continued, lowering her voice. “Well, he's a splendid player. Tom doesn't want him to play, and I don't either, because I want the High School to beat. But it would not be fair not to tell you, would it?”
Young Smart looked at her curiously. “Say, little girl, you're a sport. And is he a good player?”
“Oh, he's splendid, but he's queer—I mean he looks queer. He's awfully funny. But that doesn't matter, does it?”