Chapter VII: The Meadow-Brook Girls Change Their Minds

For a full minute the two camps were so convulsed with laughter that they were unable to go to the rescue of the two unfortunate tennis players, now so thoroughly wound up in the net as to be quite helpless. The more they tried to extricate themselves the more entangled did they become.

Then something else was discovered. Sam Crocker was seen groveling on the ground, both bands clapped tightly against his face.

“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Dill Dodd after the two unfortunates, bruised and sore, had been assisted out of the net.

“If you had eyes you could see without asking so many questions. She let the racquet go when she struck at the ball and it got me. The end of the handle hit me on the nose. It’s harder than iron, too. It’s broken, as sure as you’re alive. Oh, why did I ever permit myself to get into this scrape?”

“That is too bad,” replied Dill sympathetically. “Here we go and buy the best racquets to be had, then you have to break one the first thing.”

“What!” yelled Sam. “It wasn’t the racquet that was broken, it was my nose!”

Tommy and Margery, after having escaped from the net, had sat down heavily. Sam still sat where Tommy’s racquet had laid him low, nursing his injured nose and rocking his body to and fro.

The campers screamed with laughter. He presented such a ludicrous figure that they could not help laughing. Even Miss Elting could not hide her amusement.

“That’s right. Laugh if you want to. I’d laugh myself if I weren’t afraid of ruining my nose forever. They deserve to be laughed at,” he declared angrily.

“We aren’t laughing at Tommy and Margery, we are laughing at you,” cried Crazy Jane.

Harriet, in the meantime, had brought a basin of water and, kneeling down, was washing the blood from Sam’s damaged nasal organ. As she wiped away the blood she observed that his nose was leaning slightly to one side. Dill, who had been an interested spectator, had observed the same thing.

“Out of plumb, isn’t it?” he questioned quizzically.

“It’s broken. Didn’t I tell you it was?” groaned Sam. “I may not know everything, but I know my own nose and I know when it’s broken.”

The guardian stepped over to where Sam and Harriet were sitting. She examined Sam’s nose carefully.

“If you twitht it a little you can tell whether it ith broken or not,” suggested Tommy.

Sam yelled in anguish at the thought.

“Don’t you dare try it!”

“Never mind Tommy. She is just a little savage,” chuckled Harriet. “Neither Miss Elting nor I would give you the slightest unnecessary pain.”

“That sounds very well, Harriet. I fear, however, that I shall have to give Sam quite a little pain,” said the guardian.

“What are you going to do?” cried Sam.

“First straighten your nose, then bolster it so it will stay straight.”

“Shall I get the tent pole?” asked Dill eagerly.

“Don’t wear out my patience, fellows,” warned Sam. “I’m a wounded man, I’m a desperate man and I’m not wholly responsible for what I say or do. Are—are you going to twist it, Miss Elting?”

“I shouldn’t call it that. I am going to shape it, to mould it, restore it to its natural shape as nearly as I can, then secure it there with adhesive plaster.”

“Yeth, that ith the way,” agreed Tommy, nodding eagerly. “Let me help you, Mith Elting.”

“You will please keep away from me. Haven’t you done enough damage as it is?” demanded Sam.

“That ith what I get for trying to be helpful,” answered Tommy in an aggrieved tone. “Any one would think I had broken your nothe on purpothe. I didn’t break it at all; the racquet broke it.”

“Never mind him. He doesn’t know what he is talking about,” soothed George. “Shall I hold his hands while you are making temporary repairs, Miss Elting?”

“If you boys will go way back somewhere and sit down, we’ll have the job done in a few minutes,” suggested Jane.

“Yes, please do not interfere,” urged the guardian. “Now, don’t jerk, Sam. I am going to straighten your nose.”

Sam winced as she pressed his nose back to its normal position, and his hands gripped a handful of dirt from the tennis court, but he uttered no sound. While the guardian held the nose in place she instructed Harriet Burrell how to place the adhesive plaster, which Harriet did with delicate, skilful fingers.

“Does it hurt much?” asked the girl sympathetically.

“Hurt? Oh, no. It is the pleasantest sensation I ever enjoyed. That’s what I’m trying to make myself believe,” he added, speaking thickly, so as not to strain the muscles of his face. “But how am I going to breathe?”

“You have your mouth left,” laughed Harriet.

“There,” announced the guardian finally, “I don’t believe a surgeon could have done better. How do you think he looks, boys?”

The boys gathered about Sam, hands thrust into their trousers pockets, and regarded him solemnly.

“I gueth,” smiled Tommy, “if you would thtand him up in a cornfield he would thcare all the crowth away. He lookth jutht like a thcare crow, doethn’t he?”

“Just what I was going to suggest,” added Dill. “He’d scare the crows all right and the owner of the corn patch, too.”

“Is that all?” asked Sam, dolefully.

“I think so.” The guardian smiled down into the boyish face.

“I wish I could see how I look.”

Tommy ran into the tent, returning quickly with a hand mirror, which she handed to the boy she had unwittingly wounded.

“Look out that your face doesn’t break it,” warned Dill.

“If my face doesn’t, your head may,” retorted Sam sharply.

“Well, what do you think of it?” asked Dill Dodd with a grin.

“Think? Why, I think I should rather have my face than yours right this minute.”

This thrust restored Sam to good humor once more. His companions and the girls joined in the laugh at Dodd’s expense. The boys had replaced the net, but the hour was too late to think of having further practice. Harriet said they must begin to prepare their supper. The boys decided that it was time they were getting back to camp and starting their own evening meal. They declined an invitation to remain and take supper with the Meadow-Brook party. Harriet begged them to sit down a little while until the fire was fairly started. Instead, they placed the wood and started the fire for her, after which Hazel, whose turn it was to get supper that night, promptly set about her task.

Captain Baker relapsed into his gloomy state again. The recollection of the miserable failure of all his carefully laid plans rankled in his mind. He knew now that the girls were not deceiving him when they said they knew nothing about tennis playing. He had never seen a more pitiful exhibition than that of the afternoon; he hoped never to see another like it.

“Well, I’ll have to tell Herrington, I suppose,” he said, after remaining silent for several minutes. “But I’ll tell you truly, I’d rather be kicked all the way down to Newtown and back than to do it.”

“If you prefer I will write to Mr. Herrington myself and explain why it is impossible for the girls to enter the tournament,” suggested Miss Elting demurely.

“Never!” exclaimed George with strong emphasis. “I’m not quite such a namby-pamby as to hide behind a woman’s skirts. I’ll face the music, I’ll swallow my medicine and make a maple syrup face while I’m swallowing the bitter stuff. I’m going right down to-morrow and have the disagreeable job over.”

His companions had also relapsed into their former attitude of dejection. The full weight of their disappointment came back with overwhelming force.

“I wish I could talk without danger of cracking my face. I’d like to make a few remarks just at this time,” said Sam, talking as if he had a hot potato in his mouth.

“Try the sign language,” suggested Dill teasingly.

“All right, I will,” mumbled Sam Crocker, snatching up a pail of water and hurling it at Dill, who succeeded in eluding all except a few drops that rained over his head and down his neck.

“That’s a sign of my displeasure. Want any further signs? There are plenty of them left over yonder in the spring, if the ladies will kindly lend us the water pail.”

“No, no more signs,” replied Dill, backing away, laughing. “I would much prefer that you remain quiet. Be as silent as a clam, if you like. I’ll not criticise you.”

“I thought you wouldn’t like the sign language after you’d felt it,” snarled Sam.

“When did you say the tournament is to be held?” questioned Harriet mysteriously.

“Five weeks from to-day,” answered George Baker. “Why?” He was eyeing her almost suspiciously.

“We have been wanting something to do, something to occupy our time and keep us out of mischief, ever since we came up here to camp. I have been thinking it over, thinking of your thoughtfulness and kindness, and for your sakes, boys, I for one propose that we girls set to work and learn the game. We surely ought to be able to accomplish something in five weeks. Don’t you believe we can?”

“You—you—you mean that you _will_ play in the tournament?”

Harriet nodded.

“Yeow!” howled Captain George Baker, at which his companions came running toward him. “They’re going to play, they’re going to play!” he shouted. “Hi-diddie-um-dum, hi-diddie-um-dum!” he sang, dancing about as though he had taken sudden leave of his senses.

“What do you say, girls?” questioned Harriet, glancing about at her companions.

“We say whatever you do. You are the captain of the Meadow-Brook Girls just as Captain Baker is captain of the Tramp Club,” answered Jane.

“Then we will play.” Harriet nodded with an emphasis that left no doubt as to her earnestness. “You shall teach us to play and we will do the rest.”

“Of course we expect to be beaten badly,” sighed Hazel. “But we shall make good your entry for us, so that you boys will not be open to any accusation except that of bad tennis judgment and too great faith in the powers of the Meadow-Brook Girls,” she added with a bright little laugh.

Harriet Burrell sprang to her feet, eyes snapping.

“Wrong!” she flashed.

“What?” groaned George.

“Oh, we’ll enter the tournament, but not to lose. We’ll enter to win, boys!”

__A few seconds of impressive silence followed Harriet Burrell’s bold declaration, then such a shout rose from the throats of the boys of the Tramp Club as perhaps never had been heard in those woods before.