er to have a brother so splendid.

"We must see a lot of each other from now on," insisted Merle. "We must
get together this way every time I come back."

"We must," said Wilbur. "I hope we do, anyway," he added, reflecting
that this would be one of those things too good to come true.

"What I don't understand," went on Merle, "you haven't had the
advantages I have, not gone off to school or met lots of people, as I'm
always doing, not seen the world, you know, but you seem so much older
than I am. I guess you seem at least ten years older."

"Well, I don't know." Wilbur pondered this. "You do seem younger some
way. Maybe a small town makes people old quicker, knocking round one the
way I have, bumping up against things here and there. I don't know at
all. Sharon Whipple says the whole world is made up mostly of small
towns; if you know one through and through you come pretty near knowing
the world. Maybe that's just his talk."

"Surly old beggar. Somehow I never hit it off well with him. Too
sarcastic, thinking he's funny all the time; uncouth, too."

"Well, perhaps so." Wilbur was willing to let this go. He did not
consider Sharon Whipple surly or uncouth or sarcastic, but he was not
going to dispute with this curiously restored brother. "Try a brassy on
that," he suggested, to drop the character of Sharon Whipple.

Merle tried the brassy, and they played out the hole. Merle made an
eight.

"I should have had a six at most," he protested, "after that lovely long
brassy shot."

Wilbur grinned.

"John McTavish says the should-have-had score for this course is a
mar-r-rvel. He says if these people could count their should-have-hads
they'd all be playing under par. He's got a wicked tongue, that John."

"Well, anyway," insisted Merle, "you should have had a four, because you
were talking to me when you flubbed that approach shot; that cost you a
couple."

"John says the cards should have another column added to write in
excuses; after each hole you could put down just why you didn't get it
in two less. He says that would be gr-r-r-and f'r th' dubs."

"The hole is four hundred and eighty yards, and you were thirty yards
from the green in two," said Merle. "You should have had--"

"I guess I should have had what I got. Sharon Whipple says that's the
way with a lot of people in this life--make fine starts, and then flub
their short game, fall down on easy putts and all that, after they get
on the lawn. He ca