"Now, upon my
word. Jack, you have more thoughtfulness than ever I gave you credit
for."
Mr. Rogers stared at her.
"An hour's knockabout with me will do the child more good than moping
in the house, and I ought to have thought of it myself. Come along,
Harry Brooks, and play me a match at single wicket. Help me push
away the catapult there into the corner. Will you take first
innings, or shall we toss?"
The catapult indicated by Miss Belcher was a formidable-looking
engine with an iron arm or rod terminating in a spoon-shaped socket,
and worked by a contrivance of crank and chain. You placed your
cricket-ball in the socket, and then, having wound up the crank and
drawn a pin which released the machinery, had just time to run back
and defend your wicket as the iron rod revolved and discharged the
ball with a jerk. The rod itself worked on a slide, and could be
shortened or extended to vary the trajectory, and the exercise it
entailed in one way and another had given Miss Belcher's cheeks a
fine healthy glow.
"Whew!" she exclaimed, tucking the bat under her arm and wiping her
forehead with a loose end of her yellow bandana. "I'm feelin' like
the lady in 'The Vicar of Wakefield'; by which I don't mean the one
that stooped to folly, but the one that was all of a muck of sweat.
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