Читать книгу The Brother of a Hero онлайн

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The window at the rear, just at the foot of his bed, looked over the back yard and across the intersection of two tree-lined streets. Beyond that the foliage cut off his view, although he glimpsed the copper-roofed turret of a building a block or so beyond. From the side window the school buildings in the campus were in plain sight across the street. There were four of them, all of red brick and limestone; a large one in the center of the group with a tower at one end, two others nearer at hand, and a fourth at the farther side of the campus. The middle one Rodney rightly surmised to be the recitation hall and the others dormitories. Maple Hill took care of one hundred and fifteen pupils, of which number but ninety could be accommodated in the dormitories. The newcomers usually had to go to one or other of the half dozen private houses which, while run independently of the Academy, were, as Rodney discovered later, very much under the Head Master’s supervision. From the side window Rodney lounged across to Phineas Kittson’s chiffonier and viewed the collection of photographs there. Finding those but mildly interesting, and having by this time returned to where his trunk and bag reposed upon a rug near the hall door, he bethought him of unpacking. The bag was quickly emptied and then he tackled the trunk. It wasn’t easy to decide which things should remain in it and which should be stowed in his half of the much too small closet. And he was still in the middle of his task when voices and laughter and many footfalls below told him that the rest of the household had arrived. He paused with a Norfolk jacket, which had twice made the journey to the closet and return, in his hand to listen.