“That’s Milon over there,” explained Tad. “And Wickerstaff further along. If you look sharp you can see Bursley. See where the railroad goes through a cut there? Then look above and just a little to the right. That’s it. You can see three or four of the buildings.”
“I do, but what is it? Bursley, I mean?”
Tad stared. “Why, Bursley School!”
“Oh!” But Rodney still looked mystified. “It is—is it a good one?”
“A good one!” groaned Tad. “It’s fierce! It’s our hated enemy, Rod. We loathe it! That is, we do theo—theo—what’s the word I want?”
“Theoretically?”
“Yep, theoretically. Between you and me and—and the grandstand, it’s a pretty fine place. They’ve got us beaten all hollow on buildings and such things, only we don’t acknowledge it. But they haven’t a field that can touch this. They’ve got more fellows than we have, but at that we manage to wallop them about as often as they wallop us. I think they’ve done us up at football fourteen times to our twelve. Something like that. They beat us last year and three years ago. There was once though when we got ’em three years running. That was when Ginger Merrill— Say, your name’s Merrill, too, isn’t it?” Tad turned to observe Rodney curiously. “Do you play, too?”
“Football? Not much. I’ve tried it but never made it go very well. I like baseball though.”
“So do I! They can keep their old football; give me baseball every time! I played substitute outfielder last year on the second nine. Not that I don’t like to see a good game of football, though. This fellow, Ginger Merrill, I was speaking of was a wonder! Of course I never saw him; he was before my time; but I’ve heard fellows talk about him. They made him captain in his Third Form year! We beat Bursley that year and the year before and the year after. He was captain two years and I guess that shows that he was pretty good, eh?”
“I should think so,” replied Rodney as they moved on toward the gridiron. “He must have been popular.”