“We vare friends, your great brother and I,” said the Baron, smiling through his thick lenses. “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 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 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.”