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[165] 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[166] 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[167] 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.

“i’d just like to make good to show him that he doesn’t know it all,” muttered rodney. “he seems to think he’s the only one in the family that’s good for anything. maybe if mr. cotting takes as much trouble with me as they say he did with stanley, i’ll do mighty nearly as well. anyway i don’t intend to quit just because he says so. and i’ll tell him so, too!”

but by the time rodney got around to answering that letter his annoyance had decreased to such an extent that he could write quite good-naturedly. “i don’t think he took me on just on your account,” he wrote. “they say here that he likes to get hold of fellows in the first year, catch them while they’re young, you[168] know, and nurse them along. that’s about what he did with you, isn’t it? of course i don’t expect ever to be a wonder at football, but i like the game, and as long as cotting wants to keep me on i’ll stay. maybe, though, i’ll get fired before the season’s over. but they made the last cut the other day and i survived it. everyone here seems to think i ought to know how to play just because i’m ginger merrill’s brother, and of course that is nonsense. still i may learn in time. anyway i’m having a lot of fun out of it so far. and a lot of work, too. cotting’s a bear at making the fellows work. we’ve got an average team here this year, they say. doyle is a dandy captain, and the fellows think a lot of him. so far we haven’t developed our attack much. cotting has been hammering defence into us right along, and i think we’re pretty well developed that way. he’s teaching us a shift formation that’s a peach. i wish you might come on for the bursley game, stan. can’t you do it? they’d make a regular hero of you, i guess. i wouldn’t wonder if the town would hang out flags and meet you with a brass band. try to come,[169] please. i saw a lot of pictures of you in the gym awhile ago, groups, you know. gee, but you were a funny little tyke, weren’t you?”

rodney smiled maliciously as he wrote the latter sentence. he could imagine stanley’s gasp as he perused that bit of cheek from his kid brother. you see rodney’s awe of stanley was fast disappearing.

he confided the tenor of stanley’s letter to tad, reading a few choice bits of it to that youth, and tad was properly indignant and outraged. “what’s he think you are, anyway?” he demanded. “a babe in arms? i’d write back and tell him to chase himself around the block, i would! that’s the trouble with older brothers though,” he continued feelingly. “they’re all alike. i’ve got two and i know! they think a fellow can’t do anything on his own hook, and want to fill you up to the chin with their silly advice. you take it from me, rod, it doesn’t do to humor ’em. you’ve got to sit on ’em hard just about so often. that’s the way i do. and say, you go ahead with your football and show ginger that he isn’t the only fellow who can play the game. why shucks, rod, i’ll bet you[170] anything you’ll make his record look like a punctured tire by the time you’ve been here three more years!”

“no, i shan’t do that,” answered rodney, “but i might make the team. and that would be something, wouldn’t it?”

“open his eyes a bit, i guess,” replied tad, with a chuckle. “funny how your older brothers don’t seem to think it’s possible you can be any good at anything! you’d think they’d take it for granted that if you were their brother you’d be bound to be a wonder, if you see what i mean.” tad paused to silently con his sentence. rodney nodded his comprehension and tad went on, relieved. “but they don’t. they think they’re all to the good themselves and that you’re a sort of idiot. not flattering to them, i say. but they’re all proper fools.” he shrugged his shoulders hopelessly over the incomprehensibility of elder brothers, slipped a hand into rodney’s arm, and led him down the steps. “come on over and see what the twins are up to,” he suggested.

the twins were up to nothing, as it proved. they were frankly bored. as it was sunday[171] afternoon, croquet was naturally an impossibility and they were seated on the porch, in a sunny angle, each with a book turned face down on her knees. they hailed the appearance of the two boys with all evidences of pleasure as the latter slipped through the hedge, but warning gestures of fingers to mouths cautioned the visitors to be quiet. matty jumped off the porch and met them half way across the grass.

“mama’s asleep in there,” she whispered hoarsely, pointing to a nearby lower window of the house, “so we mustn’t make any noise. let’s go over to the summer-house.”

“let’s take a walk,” said tad as may joined them. “the summer-house is too near, and rod’s such a noisy fellow he might wake your mother up.”

matty observed her sister doubtfully. “do you think she’d mind?” she asked.

“i don’t believe so. not if we told norah we were going and didn’t stay very long. i’d love to go. we’ve been just bored to death ever since dinner, haven’t we, matty?”

“bored stiff,” responded matty inelegantly[172] and emphatically. “you run and tell norah, may, please.”

a few minutes later they made their escape through the narrow gate and turned northward along hill street.

“you see,” confided may, “it was the dumplings.”

“what was the dumplings?” asked rodney, perplexed.

“that made us bored. they always do. we’re very fond of them, and norah gives them to us for sunday dinner quite often. but she oughtn’t to, because they make us feel very bored.”

“bored is a new name for it!” laughed tad. “i’d call it indigestion!”

“oh, but it really isn’t! at least, i don’t think it is. do you, matty?”

the blue-eyed twin gazed doubtfully into the distance and laid an inquiring hand on the front of her white gown. “i—i don’t know, may. it might be. i think—i think i did feel sort of queer inside after the third dumpling.”

“after the third!” exclaimed tad. “great scott, how many did you eat?”

[173]

matty turned surprised eyes to him. “why, i ate four, and may ate—how many did you eat, may?”

“only three to-day,” was the virtuous reply. “sometimes i eat five. they’re rather small dumplings, tad. but to-day i—i began to feel bored quite soon.”

“i should think so! i’d be ‘bored’ after two of the things, i guess,” said tad with a grin. “i think a walk is just what you girls need.”

“i suppose dumplings are a little indigestible,” acknowledged matty. “but they’re awfully good. norah puts lots of cinnamon in with the apple and we have just heaps of hard sauce. i think, may, that there were several left over. they’d be nice cold for supper, wouldn’t they?”

“talk about a boy’s appetite!” said tad despairingly. “gee, we don’t know anything about stuffing ourselves, do we, rod?”

“how would it do,” suggested rodney, “if we—if we had those cold dumplings when we get back?”

matty and may clapped their hands and laughed. tad smiled and winked at rodney.[174] “not a bad idea, that,” he answered. “just to keep the twins from killing themselves, eh?”

when they were a good two miles into the country, with the river lying below them silver-blue in the afternoon sunlight, matty announced that she was no longer bored. may, too, thought she had recovered from her affliction, and so they wheeled around and started homeward, those cold dumplings seeming to beckon from the distance. when they got back to the house mrs. binner had finished her nap and had retired to her room upstairs and there was no longer any necessity for keeping quiet. the twins left the two boys in the tumble-down summer-house and went on to find norah. when, a few minutes later, they returned, they bore a tray on which were the cold dumplings, a generous portion of hard sauce, saucers and spoons, a pitcher of water and four tumblers. you just had to have water when you ate dumplings, may asserted. cold apple dumplings may not appeal to the reader, especially when eaten out of doors on a late october afternoon with a westerly breeze sending shivers up and down one’s spine in spite of a[175] heavy sweater, but they tasted awfully good to the boys, and even may and matty managed, without much apparent effort, to dispose of one apiece. finally, surfeited, they laid the remains of the feast aside and sank back in comfort.

“how do you feel, tad?” asked rodney with a sigh of repletion.

“i feel—i feel just a tiny bit ‘bored,’” answered tad. “i also feel as if it will be quite unnecessary for mother westcott to prepare any supper this evening for me.”

rodney agreed as to that, and for a few minutes the conversation dealt desultorily with all sorts of subjects, from the chill in the air to the outbreak of mumps in beecher hall, where several of the first form youngsters were confined to their rooms. tad chuckled.

“yesterday tommy sands went over in front of beecher and yelled ‘heads out!’ and when about eight or ten kids came to the windows with their faces tied up, tommy pulled a nice big lemon from his pocket and held it for them to see. they say you could hear the groans ’way over at east hall!”

[176]

“that was a mean trick,” laughed rodney. “mumps are—is—which should you say? mumps are no fun, or mumps is no fun?”

“i think mumps are singular,” hazarded may. “i mean, is singular.”

“plural,” said tad. “mumps is a disease of the parrot glands——”

“of the what glands?” demanded rodney.

“parrot, i think. these glands here, anyway.”

“parotid, i think. well, anyway, as i started to say, mumps is no fun, and——”

“that doesn’t sound just right, does it, may?” said matty. “‘mumps is.’”

“ever have them?” asked tad.

the twins nodded gravely. “yes, we had them together—” began matty.

“oh, you had them together all right,” laughed tad. “you do everything together, you two!”

“yes, and we had whooping-cough together,” replied may, “and measles and scarlet fever——”

“it was only scarlatina, though,” interrupted matty apologetically.

[177]

“—and—and—quinsy——”

“and mastoids!” added matty triumphantly.

“i don’t see but what you two kids have been pretty well through the list,” laughed tad. “ever have charley-horse?”

“what?” asked matty.

“don’t mind him,” said rodney. “you get it playing football, when you bruise your hip. hello, there goes kitty! let’s call him in. do you mind?”

“of course not,” said the twins in unison.

so rodney hurried to the gate and brought back kitty, who, clad for walking, with his faithful pedometer at his belt, was very red of face and moist of brow.

“had a dandy stroll,” declared kitty as he joined the others in the summer-house. “went all the way over to finger rock and back.”

“finger rock!” exclaimed tad. “why, that must be five miles!”

“just about.” kitty consulted his pedometer. “a little less, i think. this thing says nine and about a half. fine day for walking, though.”

“isn’t it?” agreed matty. “and—and are your lungs pretty well, phineas?”

[178]

kitty nodded gravely. “yes, thanks; can expand eight inches now. never felt better than i do this fall. think football is good for me, too. think i can observe a slight—slight benefit.”

“what is finger rock?” asked rodney.

“it’s wonderful!” declared matty, and may nodded agreement. “it’s down the river nearly to thurling. haven’t you ever seen it?”

“i’ve never been further that way than we went this afternoon,” replied rodney.

“oh, but you can see it from the field,” said tad. “they call it finger rock because it stands up like—like a sore thumb! it’s ’most a hundred feet high, isn’t it, kitty?”

“eighty-six feet, they say. quite sheer, though.”

“quite—what?” asked rodney.

“straight up and down,” explained tad. “i guess not many folks have ever climbed to the top of it, although you can get up about half way without much trouble.”

“i’ve been on top,” said kitty. “twice.”

“oh, run away!” exclaimed tad.

kitty nodded soberly. “fact. last year,[179] and then about three weeks ago. hard work, though.”

“i’d like to see it,” said rodney. “will you show it to me some day, kitty?”

“yes, any day you say.”

“he will walk you to death,” warned tad. “i say, fellows—and young ladies—wouldn’t it be fun to take some lunch and go down there some day? have a sort of picnic, you know. what do you say?”

“we’d love to!” cried matty. “wouldn’t we, may?”

“love to,” echoed may ecstatically. “but i don’t suppose mama would let us do it,” she added doubtfully.

“i wonder if she would,” mused her sister. “anyway, we could ask her. when would we go, tad?”

“why, i don’t know. you fellows have practice in the afternoons, don’t you? we might go some saturday morning and get back about two. we could hire a rig——”

“oh, it would be so much more fun to walk,” said matty.

“walk! all the way there and back?” tad[180] groaned. then, with a shrug of his shoulders, “all right. i’m game if you are. will you come along, kitty?”

“thanks. like it very much.” kitty looked both surprised and gratified at being included.

“let’s make it next saturday morning,” suggested rodney, “and get a good early start so we can get back in time for the game in the afternoon. you ask your mother, matty, and see if you can go.”

“we have our music saturday mornings,” said matty sadly.

“then i guess we’d better wait until spring,” responded tad with a somewhat relieved tone in his voice.

“perhaps, though,” said may thoughtfully, “we could get miss mapes to let us have our lesson friday after school. we could ask her, matty.”

so, in the end, it was agreed that the twins were to try to arrange things so that they could get away next saturday morning, and that, if they were successful, the party was to start out for finger rock at half-past eight, or as soon after as possible. then, the twins having[181] volunteered to attend to the luncheon, and the boys having indicated their preferences in the matter of viands, the assemblage broke up, kitty by this time being thoroughly chilled through, and the boys retired to their own premises by way of the hedge.

“we’ll let you know to-morrow noon,” called matty from the porch.

“all right,” answered tad. “and i say, matty! if we do go, keep away from dumplings the day before, please!”

they could hear the twin’s laughter as they gained their own side of the hedge.