“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.”
“That’s the 1911 track team,” said Tad. “They slammed it into Bursley good and hard, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” murmured Rodney. His gaze had wandered to a group of football players, eighteen sturdy looking youths in togs of whom the center figure, holding a football on his knees, looked strangely familiar. It took a second look to identify the youth as Ginger Merrill, for Ginger in the picture looked years younger, and of course was without the carefully cared for mustache that nowadays adorned his upper lip.