Chapter XIII: In the Hands of a Master

The Englishman was out early the next morning. The girls found him hobbling about with a stick, he having cast his crutch aside. It was plain that he was a very resolute young man, who intended to begin his task with a will.

The Tramp Boys came over shortly after Disbrow had finished his breakfast with the Meadow-Brook Girls.

“Well, what’s the first thing on the program, P. E.?” questioned George.

“The first thing is to make the court usable. At present it is hopeless. If you will have your boys get to work on it, we may be able to have a try-out some time this afternoon. Got anything to mark the lines with!”

“No, I forgot the chalk.”

“Any flour in the camp?”

Miss Elting said there was. Disbrow said that when the court had been leveled off he would mark out the side lines and base lines with the flour, after which the girls would play a game for him. All that forenoon the boys worked at their task, and by luncheon time had done all the champion had suggested. The court, he said, was still in almost impossible shape, but that it was the best that could be had at that moment.

The hour following the luncheon was spent in conversation, after which Disbrow told the young women to go on the court and play out a set. At first they were nervous with the champion watching them, but after the first two games of the set their confidence returned, their nervousness disappeared and they went at their work with a vim. George chewed his hat brim nervously as they floundered about the court, but the face of the Englishman was impassive. He watched keenly, making no comment, but storing up data in his mind to be used later on when he should have really begun his instruction. Tommy and Harriet were playing together against Hazel and Jane, which arrangement the champion changed in the last half of the set.

The set came to an end suddenly through a fault of Jane’s, and the girls, flushed and excited, turned to their new instructor.

“Are we to play another game?” questioned Harriet.

“No.”

“What do you think of them?” asked George in a hesitating voice.

“Too early to think, old chap. Better reserve the thinking for another time. There is work to be done now. I wonder if I should break my neck if I were to play a game?”

“Better not try it,” answered the captain.

“Yes, I will. I’ll play against you and—who is your best player?”

“Charlie is.”

“Then take your places. We won’t toss for sides. There isn’t any choice so far as I can see. You will excuse me if I use my stick to assist me. I will permit your side to serve. That will give you the advantage at the beginning. I probably shall make an exhibition of myself. What I want you young ladies to observe is my method of delivery. My position will be nothing to be proud of, playing on one leg, as I shall have to.”

“I fear it will not be prudent for you to try,” said Miss Elting, with a shake of her head.

“I must get myself into shape in order to coach the Meadow-Brook team properly. Now that I have started, I shall go through with it. How could I do otherwise after being made acquainted with the pluck of your young charges! Let it come, old chappie.”

George served the ball. Disbrow hopped on one leg, making a leap half-way across the court, scooping up the ball after its first bound, as the rules require. It slipped past George and Charlie really before they realized that it was on the way.

“Love, fifteen,” sang out the Englishman. “You will have to do better than that, my lads, or it wouldn’t do for you to try to play opposite the young ladies. Love, thirty. Why, what ails you, boys? You aren’t playing tennis, you are merely watching your opponent play.”

The Englishman was hopping from one side of the court to the other, in the air, it seemed, fully as much as he was on the ground. Disbrow out of a court and Disbrow in a court were two wholly different personalities. The Meadow-Brook Girls began to understand why he was a champion. They revised their earlier opinions about his being delicate and slow. His movements when occasion required were lightning-like in their rapidity, then with a languid movement of his racquet he would drop the ball just over the net, many feet from where Charlie and Captain George were waiting to receive it. Wherever they were not, there went the tennis ball. The Englishman outplayed them at every point.

The girls became so excited over the game that they simply could not keep still. They applauded till their hands stung and smarted, they shouted until their voices grew husky. They had never seen the like of this, and now that they had begun to understand the game of tennis, they were able to appreciate many of the fine plays. It was the grace and ease of the player at all times that aroused their wonder. He appeared to work without the slightest effort, even with the handicap of a foot that would not bear his weight. The tennis ball, too, seemed endowed with reasoning powers, it seemed to change its course after leaving the racquet of the server when an opponent got in the way. This they could not understand, neither could the other spectators, for they had never seen anything like it in all their experience.

“Game!” announced the Englishman. “Keep right on playing. We will go through the set. See to it that you don’t loaf. Play tennis; don’t stand there and watch me serve. Show the young ladies that you at least know how to play the game.”

George flushed.

“Of course I know how. They know that without my showing them. But what can you expect a couple of amateurs to do against the champion of all England and half the United States of America? Charlie, watch yourself,” he added in a whisper. “We’ve got to win at least one game of the set from P. E. for the sake of our reputation with the girls.”

“We’ll be a heap better players than we are now before we win anything from him. There’s something about his serving that I can’t understand, some magic that we don’t know about.”

“The magic of skill, that’s all, Charlie. Play.”

The ball came back as before. This set told nearly the same story as the first, Disbrow winning all the points up to the last game of the set. The first game had been a _love game_, meaning that Disbrow had won all the points. On the fifth game of the second set, George made a point on his opponent because Disbrow had missed his footing on the soft ground of the court.

The girls were delighted. Somehow they did not like the idea of seeing the Tramp Boys wholly defeated, though they knew well that the point would not have been scored for the boys, had the champion been playing on a hard court.

That was the last and only point won by George and Charlie in that set. In the last game of the set, Disbrow, apparently having become warmed up, threw himself into the work with utter abandon, this time playing faster than he had at any time before that. His right arm, the sleeve rolled nearly to the shoulder, grew rosy from the rapid exercise, his ordinarily pale face showed a delicate flush and his eyes sparkled with excitement, even though his opponents were not worthy of the name.

From that time on followed the most wonderful exhibition of tennis playing that any person present had ever seen. And further, hopping on one foot was not the only remarkable thing about Disbrow’s playing.

“He hopth jutht like a jack rabbit,” cried Tommy. “I believe I could do that, too. Harriet, that ith the trouble with our playing—we don’t hop. I’ll know what to do the next time we play tennith. Then I’ll thurely win.”

“You will hop on your head if you try it,” warned Sam.

The game came to a close, to the regret of all except the players opposed to the champion. As for them, they had had enough of it. They were not anxious to play another game.

Excitement ran high. The girls wanted to shout with all their lung power. Tommy did, giving unrestrained vent to her emotions. The camp of the Meadow-Brook Girls was vibrant with enthusiasm. They were eager to be at a game of their own.

“I can hardly hold myself, I am so eager to play,” declared Harriet, eyes and cheeks glowing.

“Now, give heed to what I say,” requested Disbrow, with a shake of the head. “I will first teach you the strokes. There are five strokes on which are built the whole structure of modern tennis playing, viz., the service stroke, the horizontal ground stroke, the volley, the half-volley and the lob. There are, of course, variations of these, such as the drop-stroke, the side-stroke and the cut—or chop—all of which you will take up in their regular order, learning one thoroughly, then going on to the next. Two of you take your places in the court and practise the service.”

Harriet and Tommy did so, Jane and Hazel being told to listen and observe closely, as their turn would follow.

“The service—that is, putting the ball into play—should be an overhand delivery, almost straight, with a slight cut to the right to keep the ball from sailing in the air,” continued Disbrow. “Reach up high, rising on the left toe, bringing the ball sharply down into the opponent’s court. Now we shall practise the service for a time until your wrists grow tired. And right here let me suggest that when the racquet is not in action it is a good idea to rest it across the left hand, which relieves the right wrist wonderfully. Boys, please get into the other court and return the balls. We shan’t have time to chase them.”

Harriet and Tommy made their first service, but Harriet put so much force into the ball that it rolled out of the other court.

“Too much speed, Miss Burrell. Try that again. There, that is much better. Now, Miss Thompson.” She, too, did better this time.

Hazel and Jane were next given a chance. While they were learning the tricks and twists of the service, Harriet and Tommy were practising it by themselves just beyond the court, Disbrow now and then offering a criticism or a suggestion.

Nearly two hours were spent on the service stroke alone. Then, after a brief rest, they took up the half-volley, which Disbrow explained was the art of trapping the ball with the racquet, blocking it—not striking it—just as it rises from the ground. The girls worked faithfully all that forenoon, declining to halt for any long period of rest until their instructor finally insisted upon it. How much progress they had made they could only guess, for Mr. Disbrow did not commit himself. During the luncheon, of course, the talk was on tennis. The very air was charged with tennis. The Meadow-Brook Girls, the Tramp Club, the guardian and the English champion breathed in the atmosphere of the game as they did the fragrant air of the pines that surrounded the clearing where the court had been laid.

Now that he was not playing, Mr. Disbrow walked with a more noticeable limp than before. He denied, however, that his two sets on the court had had anything to do with this. He said inactivity, sitting about and doing nothing, was responsible for the stiffness of the muscles of the injured ankle.

After luncheon the girls were eager to get at their practice again, but the instructor said they must digest their food first. In the meantime he gave them some detailed instruction regarding the importance of holding the racquet correctly.

“One principal reason why you appear to play so awkwardly is that you do not know how to hold your racquets,” he said. “Before coming to that I am going to give you three things to store away in your minds and think of whenever you are not thinking of anything else. That’s an Irish bull, isn’t it?” he smiled.

“An Englishman couldn’t make one,” retorted Jane quickly.

“The three things are _how_ to hit the ball, _where_ to hit the ball and _when_ to hit the ball. Just think that over, young ladies. To return to the best way of holding the racquet; remember that the grasp on it should always allow the greatest possible freedom for the muscles of the wrist. Always avoid a cramped position. The full length of the handle should always be used, the end of the handle resting against the fleshy part of the palm. That isn’t difficult to remember, is it?”

Each girl replied by adjusting her racquet to the right hand.

“For forehand play the grip of the hand should be along the handle with the first finger separated from the others and extended an inch or two farther along the racquet. The finger nails when at rest on the handle should face the direction the ball is to go. In making the backhand stroke, which you will learn this afternoon, the fingers should be closer together and the thumb extended out along the handle behind the racquet. The second or middle knuckles should face in the direction the ball is to be driven. I think that will be enough lecture for the present. Do you all thoroughly understand?”

“I think we do,” answered Harriet. “I would suggest that we go through the forehand and backhand strokes to make certain that we are right.”

Disbrow nodded his approval. Most of the girls hit it the first time, all on the second trial.

“Now we will practise the various strokes, first going over what we learned this morning.”

The practice for the rest of the day was real work. There was no inspiration in it, though the Meadow-Brook spirit was strong upon the four girls, and not for a moment did they permit themselves to feel the monotony that the Tramp Boys long since had found. The girls devoted themselves painstakingly to every stroke taught them. The new instruction meant the undoing of much that they had already learned, but that was to be expected. The girls were not to be disturbed by it.

Late in the afternoon they asked permission to play a game, but the Englishman declined to allow it.

“You may not play a game even to-morrow,” he added. “It will depend upon the progress you make for the rest of the day and to-morrow forenoon.”

He was so patient and gentle with them that the girls, knowing what a trial they must be, found themselves greatly drawn to their instructor.

There seemed to be little difference in the progress of the girls, except in the case of Tommy. Her companions were amazed at her work. One would not have thought it of Tommy Thompson. She was as pleased over her success and as enthusiastic as any of her companions. Added to this was a full measure of the Meadow-Brook “do or die” spirit that always had characterized this little organization of wide-awake girls.

After supper they all sat and talked around the campfire, before which the Englishman comfortably stretched himself, after having asked permission to do so. Later on in the evening the boys escorted him to his tent. On the morrow they were to move him over to their own camp, his ankle now being strong enough to enable him to walk about with some degree of comfort.

“Well, what do you think about them?” was Captain George’s eager question when they had entered the Englishman’s tent that night.

“A fine lot of young women,” answered Disbrow enthusiastically.

“I know all about that. But what about this tournament—what are the prospects, do you think?”

“Pretty early to answer that question, isn’t it?”

“You have come to some conclusion about it, I know.”

“Miss Burrell has the making of a great tennis player,” answered the champion.

“Just what I said,” cried George enthusiastically. “I knew I’d picked a winner.”

“She has a wise little head on her shoulders, George. She uses it, too. It is working all the time, which is a most necessary quality in a tennis player. I know of no sport that requires more of this quality.”

“Then you think the girls have a chance to win out in the tournament! I can’t tell you how glad I am to have you say that. It repays me for a lot of stewing, old man.”

“Not so fast, old chappie. I haven’t said that at all. On the contrary, I do not consider that they have the slightest chance of winning in the doubles at your tournament if, as you say, there are several clever teams entered. How could you expect it? They may stay in for a few sets just because of that wonderful pluck and spirit. But the finals”—the Englishman shook his head. “Hopeless, George. You might as well make up your mind to that.”

George Baker groaned dismally. Then he gripped his friend’s arm.

“You won’t tell them that, P. E.? Please don’t tell them that. It would so discourage them that they would quit instantly.”

“You don’t know your friends, I see,” answered Disbrow with a short laugh. “They would laugh at me were I to make such an announcement, and tell me very quietly and confidently that they were going to enter the tournament and were going to win. What are you going to do with such spirit as that? I take off my hat to it. Whatever P. Earlington Disbrow can do for those plucky young women he is going to do, and don’t forget it, Captain George Baker!”