The first team ran away with the scrimmage game that afternoon, piling up four touchdowns and kicking three goals after them, while the second failed to get nearer to the other goal than the twelve yard line. Two days later the tables were turned, for the second kept the first from crossing their goal line, and then in the last two or three minutes of play sent a neat kick from the field over the cross-bar. Rodney played fifteen minutes that day, but I can’t honestly say that much of his team’s success was due to his presence. Rodney had a whole lot to learn yet. But “old Kitty” was making good.
CHAPTER XIV
THE TWINS ARE BORED
Brother Stanley wasn’t a very good correspondent. Rodney had written him a whole long, newsy letter a fortnight after he had arrived at Maple Hill and had sent him weekly messages in his epistles to his parents, but it was not until well toward the last of October, by which time Rodney had been a Maple Hiller for over a month, that a reply arrived from Ginger. And after he had read it Rodney didn’t know whether to be most amused or most annoyed.
Dear Kid [Stanley wrote],
I meant to answer your letter long ago, but I’ve been awfully busy at the office and outside it, too. Of course the mater and dad have kept you posted on home news. Not much goes on there anyway. Even Omaha’s pretty dull this fall. Well, I’m glad you’ve got shaken down so well at school. It’s a great little school, and I hope you appreciate the advantages you are getting there. I tell you, Rod, if I had it to do over again I’d make a lot better use of my time than I did both there and at college. A fellow never knows until it’s too late what a lot of chances he is wasting at school. But you are more of a grind than I ever was—you call it noser at Maple Hill, don’t you? And I guess you’ll do better in the study line. I see by your letters home that you’ve gone out for football. More fool you. You haven’t the making of a good player, as I’ve told you lots of times and you’re just wasting your time. I tell you football takes a lot of time away from study just when a fellow needs it most. At the beginning of the year a fellow ought to pay a lot of attention to study, or else he gets in wrong and queers himself at the start. You take my advice, Kid, and let football alone. You say Cotting made you come out. That’s like old Cot, too. But if he hasn’t found out yet that he’s wasting his time on you, you tell him I say he is and that he’s to let you go. Wait until spring and try for baseball. You’re a pretty good baseball player for a young fellow, and you might make good there. But you stick to study this fall and winter. If you don’t you’ll have to answer to me when I see you, Rod. I’m not going to have you get through there and not learn anything. I’d like to get back east for some of the big games next month, especially our game with Yale and your game with Bursley. Hope you fellows wipe the earth with them. Give my best to Cotting and tell him he’s to come out here this winter and see me. Tell him I’ll show him a good time all right. Best to the Baron, too, and any of the others that may remember me. Now, Kid, you do as I say and quit trying to play football. You’re not built for it in the first place, and then besides you haven’t the head for it. Cotting’s an ass to waste time on you, and I guess he’s doing it as a sort of favor to me. I wish he wouldn’t because it’s no good. You tell him I say so. Write and tell me how things are shaping, and send me a school paper once in a while. Here’s a fiver which may help out. Be good and work hard.
Yours,
Stan.
That letter sounded so much like Stanley that Rodney had only to close his eyes to get a mental picture of that big brother of his frowning over the paper as he set down all that virtuous advice. Rodney smiled as he read it over again and noted the lack of punctuation and the slovenly composition. The writing of English had never been one of Ginger’s accomplishments, and Rodney had often wondered how the former had managed to get through four years at school and a like term at college without showing any improvement in that art. But his smile disappeared as he finished the letter for the second time, and a frown took its place. On the whole he thought Stanley had a good deal of cheek to write him that he was no good at football, or at any rate to be so cocksure of it. He guessed that Stanley had forgotten that he wasn’t much of a player himself until Mr. Cotting had taken hold of him. He thought that his big brother was a bit more conceited than he had suspected. That remark to the effect that Mr. Cotting was probably encouraging Rodney merely as a favor to Stanley indicated it.