The Brother of a Hero

by Ralph Henry Barbour

So far he had not again encountered Guy Watson, and was rather glad of it. Not that he was physically afraid of Watson, but he anticipated trouble sooner or later, and, being a sensible chap, preferred to avoid it as long as possible. One thing that amused Rodney was the fact that no one had as yet connected him with his brother, who had graduated from Maple Hill four years previous. Sooner or later fellows would discover that the famous Ginger Merrill and the unknown Rodney were brothers. Until they did Rodney was satisfied to remain in obscurity, having no desire to shine in reflected glory. He hadn’t been there twenty-four hours before he heard Stanley’s name mentioned—they didn’t call him Stanley, however; he was Ginger to fame. At Maple Hill they compared every promising football player with Ginger Merrill, and each year’s team to the team that Ginger had captained four years before. Of course, Rodney knew that that remarkable brother of his had been something unusual on the football field, but he didn’t realize Stanley’s real greatness until he reached Maple Hill and heard fellows hold forth. They spoke of Ginger almost with bated breath, at least with a pride and reverence that warmed Rodney’s heart and made him wonder if fellows would ever speak like that of him after he had been gone four years. If they ever did, he reflected, it would not be because of his prowess on the gridiron, for football had no place in Rodney’s scheme. He liked to watch the game and could get as excited and partisan as anyone over it, but as for playing—well, one football hero was enough in a family, and Rodney had confined his athletic interests to baseball and tennis. Of those he was fond, especially tennis. He rather prided himself on his tennis. He had tried football, had even played a whole season on a team composed of grammar school youngsters in Orleans, but he had never become an enthusiast, nor ever made a name for himself. If someone, ball in arm, ran the length of the field and fell triumphant over the goal line, it was never Rodney. Rodney played in the line, took his medicine unflinchingly, did his best to give as good as he got, and was always somewhat relieved when the final whistle sounded. No, it wouldn’t be for his football prowess that posterity would remember him.

Rodney had an interest in life, however. He liked to learn things, all sorts of things; mathematics even. History had no terrors for him. He could even find reasons to remember dates. Latin he liked immensely, and Greek he found absolutely romantic, although, what Greek he knew he had picked up almost unaided. Modern languages—well, a fellow had to know French and German, of course, but Rodney was less enthusiastic about them. Geography, physics, even botany—all was grist that came to his mill. This love of learning he had inherited from his father. Mr. Merrill had started in life as a farmer’s boy, and by sheer passion for learning things had climbed up and up until to-day at forty-five he was the actual if not yet the official head of one of the biggest railroad systems of the country. Of Mr. Merrill’s five children, two boys and three daughters, only Rodney had succeeded to his father’s thirst for knowledge. Stanley was smart enough and had managed to do fairly well at his studies both at school and at college, but, to use his own expression, “he was no shark.” Stanley was far more contented in the Omaha office of the railroad than he had been in the classrooms. Perhaps Rodney’s youngest sister, Eleanor, was more like Mr. Merrill than any of the children save Rodney; although aged thirteen, her thirst for knowledge took the form of ceaseless questioning.

At grammar school, back at home, Rodney’s friends and companions had viewed his studiousness with surprise, and for awhile with disapproval. Finding eventually, however, that aside from his strange love for lessons he was very much the same as they were, they forgave him his peculiarity. But at Maple Hill scholarship was not regarded askance. In fact, Maple Hill rather went in for learning, and Rodney found himself in congenial surroundings. Maple Hill had its own local idiom, and in its language to study was to nose, and one who was of professed studiousness was a noser. Doubtless the word was suggested by the expression “with his nose in his book.” At all events, Rodney became a noser, and settled down quite happily and contentedly.

Of course, just at first there were some lonesome hours. In fact there was one whole day of homesickness. That was Thursday. On Thursday Orleans, Nebraska, seemed a terribly long way off and the trees sort of smothered him, and the cool, crisp breeze that blew along Maple Ridge brought an ache with it. But somehow on Friday morning it was all different. He awoke to find Kitty lying on his back in the middle of the floor, chastely attired in a suit of white and pink pajamas, going through his first exercises. He had different ones for almost every period of the day. Just now he was stretched at length, inflating and deflating his lungs and making strange, hoarse noises in his throat. Rodney looked on for a moment in amusement, and then suddenly discovering that the sunlight streaming across the foot of his bed was very bright, that the morning air held an invitation, and that he was most terribly hungry, he made a bound that just cleared Kitty’s prostrate form and was ready for anything that fate had in store. And fate, as it happened, had quite a number of things up its sleeve.

After breakfast—and, oh, how he did enjoy that meal—he had only to cross the road, enter through a little revolving stile in the fence, and follow a path for a short distance across the campus to reach the classrooms in Main Hall. He went alone because none of the other Vests were ready. It was the custom to wait on the porch of the cottage until the morning bell began to ring and then make a wild dash for the hall, arriving there just as the last clang sounded; you say ‘Good morning, sir,’ and be quick about ten minutes before the hour, but they were not deserted. Main Hall entrance was a sort of general meeting place for the boys, a forum where all sorts of matters were discussed before, between, and after recitations. This morning the wide stones held some twenty youths when Rodney approached. Two First Formers, sticking close together for companionship, nodded to Rodney eagerly. He had met them last evening, and now he would have joined them if fate hadn’t sprung its first trick just then.

“Hello, little brighteyes!” greeted a voice. The appellation was novel to Rodney, but the voice had a familiar sound and so he turned. The speaker was Guy Watson. He was grinning, but Rodney didn’t like the expression back of the grin.

“Hello,” he answered quietly, and crossed over to join his classmates.

“Not quite so airy, please,” continued Watson. “A little more respect, sonny. Now, then, try it again.”

He lolled over in front of Rodney, a frown replacing the grin.