guess who we’ve got here in the house!” exclaimed pete greenough, encountering jack billings in front of the cottage just before supper time that evening. jack, who had been playing baseball, carried a favorite bat in one hand, and now he raised it threateningly.
“go ahead with your joke,” he said grimly.
“it isn’t a joke at all,” pete protested. “it’s something about this chap merrill. tad just told me. who do you suppose he is?”
“tad?”
“no, merrill, you silly goat!”
“his name is rodney merrill,” replied jack calmly. “he lives in orleans, nebraska, and he is a younger brother of ginger merrill, of blessed fame!”
[104]
“oh, somebody told you!” exclaimed pete disappointedly.
“no, i guessed it, two days ago. i heard merrill say he was from the west and i stopped in at the office and looked him up. then i got an old catalogue and found that ginger came from the same town. after that it was only necessary to compare their looks.”
“well, why didn’t you tell a fellow?”
jack shrugged his shoulders as he entered the gate. “he didn’t seem to want to have it known, pete, so i kept still.”
“that’s what gets me,” said pete. “why the dickens did he keep so mum about it? anyone would think he was ashamed of it! say, it’s a bit of a feather in our hat, isn’t it? having ginger merrill’s brother in our house, i mean.”
“why, yes,” answered jack, taking a seat on the top step and studying a nick in his bat. “it’s going to be a little hard on merrill though,” he added soberly.
“what is?”
“this being ginger’s brother. fellows will expect a lot from him, won’t they?”
“i guess so,” acknowledged pete thoughtfully.
[105]
“yes, and from what i see of young merrill he’s just a decent, ordinary sort of kid. that’s what i mean. if he doesn’t turn out a great football player or a great something else, the fellows are going to be disappointed in him. besides that, pete, he stands a pretty good show of getting a swelled head on his brother’s account, eh?”
“oh, we’ll look after that,” returned pete confidently. “if he shows any of that sort of thing we’ll take it out of him. he doesn’t yet, though, does he? his keeping quiet about ginger looks as if he was sort of a modest kid, eh?”
“yes, unless——”
“what?”
“unless he did it to get a better effect, if you see what i mean.”
“can’t say i do, jack.”
“we-ell, he must have known that it would come out sooner or later. maybe he thought if he kept quiet about it it would make more of a sensation when it did become known.”
“oh!”
“that’s only what might be, pete. i’m not saying it’s so. from what i’ve seen of merrill[106] i rather like him. perhaps a little too—too independent, but a decent sort for all that. what he’s got to be made to understand, pete, is that being ginger merrill’s brother butters no parsnips; that if he’s going to make good he’s got to forget that and dig out on his own account.”
“going to tell him so?”
“me?” jack shook his head slowly. “no, at least not in so many words. perhaps a hint will do him good some time though. i don’t believe in interfering much, pete. every fellow has his own row to hoe, and you can’t help him very much. for my part, i shan’t say anything to him about his brother. better let him think we don’t care much about whose brother he is. who made the discovery, pete?”
“cotting. tad says cotting knew him the moment he saw him, and came up and shook hands with him.”
“oh, is merrill out for the team?”
“not yet. he and tad were looking on. he’s going out to-morrow though, tad says. cotting wouldn’t take no. merrill says he can’t play, but cotting wouldn’t believe him. neither[107] do i. stands to reason that ginger merrill’s brother can play football, doesn’t it?”
“i don’t see why, pete. anyhow, i hope he makes good. it’ll save him a lot of trouble if he does. let’s go and wash up.”
rodney came down to supper looking self-conscious in spite of his efforts not to. he suspected that all the other fellows in the house had learned of his relationship with the redoubtable ginger, for kitty had shaken him gravely by the hand ten minutes before and assured him that he considered it an honor to have ginger merrill’s brother for a roommate. kitty also declared that the records showed ginger to have had one of the finest chest developments in the history of the school, a fact which ennobled that youth more in kitty’s estimation than all his football prowess. pete greenough, reading rodney’s expression aright, recalled jack’s theory and concluded that perhaps after all young merrill wasn’t such a modest kid as he had thought. at table, however, not a word was said about ginger merrill until mrs. westcott herself brought up the subject. wasn’t it delightful, she asked, to have dear[108] stanley’s brother with us? whereupon jack said:
“pass the bread, please, tom,” and warren hoyt expressed the hope languidly that merrill could chase a pigskin half as well as his brother had. that gave rodney the opportunity he wanted.
“i can’t though,” he said bluntly. “i’m no good at football and i don’t want to play it. i told mr. cotting so but he insisted that i was to come out to-morrow. i won’t stay long though.”
“no, he will drop you quick enough if you can’t deliver the goods,” said tom trainor. tom spoke from sad experience. stacey trowbridge looked across from the other end of the table.
“you’ve played, have you, merrill?” he asked quietly.
“yes, a little. enough to find out i’m no good at it.”
“you can’t tell,” said pete. “cotting has a way of making the most of fellows, i guess.”
“he makes mistakes sometimes though,” said tad mudge gravely. “he let tom get away.”
[109]
there was a laugh at this sally, which tom joined in good-naturedly, and the conversation wandered to other subjects. after supper rodney and tad made up their tiff.
“sorry i was so grouchy,” said rodney.
“that’s all right. i don’t blame you, rod. i guess i was rather fresh anyway. want to take a walk?”
by the next morning rodney’s fame had spread throughout the school. fellows nudged each other at sight of him and whispered when they thought he couldn’t see. but rodney did see, or at least knew it somehow, and was half pleased and half annoyed. he was glad that fellows held his brother in the esteem they did and hoped that some day they might like him half as well, but it was a little bit annoying to be looked on as ginger merrill’s brother, as though he was of no importance on his own account. one of the submasters, mr. steuben, who was known as the baron, shook hands with him and told him pleasant things about stanley, and inquired solicitously after that youth.
“we vare friends, your great brother and i,” said the baron, smiling through his thick lenses.[110] “ven you write to him you must tell him i still think of him. and tell him also, that i am so glad to have his brother here to teach him the german and the physics.”
rodney and tad went over to the gymnasium at three, rodney lugging a bundle of football togs donated by tad. the new boy had never been inside the gymnasium before and he was both surprised and impressed by the elaborateness of it. apparently it contained everything desirable. big windows threw light everywhere and even the darker corners under the running gallery were walled with white glazed brick so that even there one could see perfectly. the big floor of white oak shone with cleanliness and even the chest weights and more complicated apparatus that lined the walls were miraculously free from dust. in the dressing and bath rooms the floors were of concrete, and wherever possible concrete brick and steel took the place of wood. there was a fine batting cage in the basement, a bowling alley and smaller rooms for fencing and boxing. a staircase of steel and slate led from the entrance hall to the second story where a low-ceilinged room[111] held a rowing tank and several rowing machines. doors led from the upper hall to the running track, and tad pushed them open and the boys descended the sloping curve at the turn and viewed the gymnasium from the gallery railing.
“looks bigger from here, doesn’t it?” asked tad. “those little black dots painted on the floor are to show you where to stand in gym class.”
“what’s the circle in the middle?” asked rodney.
“for basket ball. we used to play it a lot, but faculty got down on it and now it’s barred, except for scrub playing. we used to have some hot old games with bursley. fellows got hurt a lot though. bursley played too rough,” tad chuckled.
“meaning maple hill didn’t?” asked rodney with a smile.
“oh well, when the other fellow starts something you’ve got to keep up with him,” responded tad with a grin. “i guess it was about an even thing.”
back in the hall tad drew rodney’s attention[112] to a cabinet against the wall under the broad, high window. “trophy case,” he explained. inside, behind the glass doors, were a dozen or more footballs, each inscribed with the score of the game in which it had been used. “the winning team keeps the ball, you know,” said tad. “look at this one over here. ‘m. h. 28; b. 9.’ that was a peach of a game, i’ll bet. that was the second year your brother was captain. and here’s the one the year before. ‘maple hill 12; bursley s. c.’”
there were baseballs there, as well, and a few hockey pucks, and against the back of the case some faded silk banners whose gold lettering was well nigh illegible. the latter, tad explained, were old track trophies and dated back to what he called the dark ages. on the walls about the trophy case and all the way down the stairs were hung dozens of group photographs—football teams, baseball teams, track and field teams, rowing crews, hockey teams, basket-ball teams. under each photograph was set down the year and, in most cases, cabalistic letters and figures, as, under one group of lightly-clad youths, the inscription: “m. h. 64½; b. 31½.”
[113]
“that’s the 1911 track team,” said tad. “they slammed it into bursley good and hard, didn’t they?”
“yes,” murmured rodney. his gaze had wandered to a group of football players, eighteen sturdy looking youths in togs of whom the center figure, holding a football on his knees, looked strangely familiar. it took a second look to identify the youth as ginger merrill, for ginger in the picture looked years younger, and of course was without the carefully cared for mustache that nowadays adorned his upper lip.
“that,” said tad at rodney’s shoulder, “was the team that won 12 to 6. that was your brother’s first year as captain. he was only a third former then. here he is the year before that.”
rodney looked where tad pointed, and finally distinguished his brother peering over the shoulder of a comrade from the rear row of the group. he looked in that picture scarcely older than rodney himself at the present moment. tad exhibited him several more times—as captain of the victorious eleven which had[114] sent bursley down to defeat by the 28 to 9 score, as a substitute on a hockey seven, and as a member of a baseball team which had met defeat.
“seems to be all over the shop,” grunted rodney. “wonder if he ever did a lick of work when he was here.”
“who cares?” asked tad flippantly. “he did a heap of things that counted just as much.”
“better not let any of the faculty hear you say that,” laughed rodney. “they wouldn’t agree with you.”
“faculties never did agree with me,” responded tad, leading the way down stairs. “i can’t stand the things. i’m in favor of abolishing ’em, rod.”
