“But you’ll surely write to-night,” said the boy, when his chance to speak came; “and think of it as favorably as you can, won’t you? And remember that there are lots of competent judges who don’t agree with you. It can’t be as bad as you think if it has done me so much good.” Wolcott hung up the receiver and rose.
“It’s no go, I’m afraid. He will decide to-night, and write so that the letter will get to me to-morrow morning. The only good thing he sees about football is that the players are capable of getting up so good a brief for a bad cause.”
“Does that mean that he’s laughing at us?” demanded Poole.
“No, he was in earnest. He’ll give the arguments a fair hearing, and then decide against me.”
“It won’t be a fair hearing,” said Ware, “if his mind is already made up.”
Wolcott turned sharply. “He’ll do what he thinks is right, anyway—that I’m sure of.”
Laughlin gave his manager’s arm a tug that pulled him half across the room. “Come home, Dan, and let Wolcott alone. You can’t gain anything now by arguing. We’ve just got to take what Mr. Lindsay says and make the best of it.”
They parted for the night with few words. Wolcott, who would not listen to criticism of his father’s judgment from his friends, yet felt a very human resentment that he should be treated as a child whose opinion was valueless, in a matter with which he was familiar and his father obviously not, and that his father’s prejudices should be the only guide to the momentous decision. Great as was his mortification and his sense of ill treatment, he betrayed it openly to no one; and never had he the slightest notion of defying his father’s command.
The letter-carrier was waylaid next morning as he turned into the schoolyard and forced to deliver instantly. With the fatal scroll in their possession, the four boys hurried upstairs to Poole’s room, which lay nearest on their way, and sat in solemn silence while Wolcott read. The letter was as follows:—
“MY DEAR BOY: I regret extremely to write that after carefully considering your letter and the letters of your friends, Ware and Laughlin, I cannot see a sufficient reason for changing my opinion with regard to your playing football. Your appeal touches my heart, but the arguments offered impress me as clever efforts to make the best of a bad cause, rather than as _bona fide_ reasons for a reversal of my decision. The evening paper, which I was reading when you called me to the telephone, reports among the day’s football news that Harvard has several good men ‘among the cripples’; that ‘Yale’s hospital list is large’; that Jones of Dartmouth will be out of the game for a fortnight at least with his shoulder; while Smith of Princeton is laid off with water on the knee, which will prevent his playing again the present season. These _may_ be ‘insignificant and temporary injuries,’ as your friends maintain, but they seem to be real enough to affect the prospects of the teams concerned. Cripples and the hospital are not terms which I like to hear habitually mentioned in connection with a sport in which my only son is engaged.