“Very slowly Tad turned his face over his shoulder” 212 “Hands seized him and arms lifted him aloft” 300 THE BROTHER OF A HERO CHAPTER I RODNEY CLIMBS A HILL “Greenridge! Greenridge! Have your tickets ready, please!” There was a hoarse blast from the whistle and the steamer sidled in toward the wharf. Rodney Merrill, his brand new suitcase tightly clutched in his left hand and his ticket firmly held in his right, followed the dozen or so passengers who were crowding toward where three deck hands waited to push over the gangplank. As the _Henry Hudson_ edged up to the landing the main street of the little town came suddenly into view, leading straight up the hill at a discouraging angle until lost to sight behind the overhanging branches of great trees. Rodney thought he had never seen so many trees before. They were everywhere――elms, maples, beeches and oaks――hiding the houses spread up the side of the ridge so that only here and there was visible a gray roof or a white wall or a red chimney top. Even here by the river edge the trees seemed to be trying to dispute the margin with the wharves and buildings. Where Rodney had come from folks first built houses and then planted trees, afterwards tending them as carefully as though they were rare flowers. Here, it seemed, folks had tucked their houses away in a veritable forest. He mentally compared the leaf-roofed street before him with Capitol Avenue, back in Orleans, Nebraska. Capitol Avenue was lined with trees, too, but the trees were as yet barely twelve feet high and cast about as much shade as would a lady’s parasol. At the left of the wharf was a ferry slip, with a little brown shed beside it bearing the legend, GREENRIDGE AND MILON FERRY COMPANY. A handful of people waited there under the shelter and watched the arrival of the river steamer. The paddles thrashed, the steamer shivered and bumped, the gangplank thudded to the wharf, and the disembarking passengers moved forward. Rodney followed, gave up his ticket, and found himself on land. He yielded his bag and trunk check to a hackman, asked directions, and with a farewell glance at the _Henry Hudson_ gained the shadiest side of the ascending street.