The meeting broke up after arranging for a round robin in three sections, Ware to set forth the facts as to accidents, Laughlin the exigency of the school, and Wolcott a plea from his own point of view. He sat down to this after the others were gone, and put into his letter all the longing and disappointment of his heart. He went back to the year before, when he had gradually learned to appreciate the manly, forceful character of the captain, and had caught the eagerness of his ambition for the team; he dwelt on his hard work through the summer to strengthen himself to take a place in the line; he told modestly of his laborious pushing up through the list of candidates; of his study of himself and his position and the men he had to meet, and his final unquestioned triumph. He had grown under the discipline, not rougher and more brutal, but stronger and firmer physically, and more collected, more resolute, more capable mentally. The great climax of all his labor was but a week away. He was perfectly able to play; the team needed him. There was but the slightest chance of physical injury. To drop out now would be a terrible sacrifice. He was ready to make it, of course, if his father insisted, but would he not reconsider and let him play the season out?
In the morning the trio gathered after chapel and put the three missives together in an envelope. Laughlin’s contribution was the shortest, Ware’s the longest. Ware weighed the package and affixed two stamps.
“Will he read all this?” queried Laughlin, suspiciously, as he poised the heavy envelope in his hand.
“Sure! every word of it,” replied Wolcott, promptly.
“Will it have any effect on him, do you think?” demanded Ware.
Wolcott smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid not. You’d better not count on me any longer in the game.”
“Come out and watch the signal practice, anyway,” said Laughlin. “That can’t hurt you. Keep up the training, too, and take a little exercise every day. I’m not giving up yet.”
CHAPTER XXI
A LOOPHOLE
There was not the slightest chance that Mr. Lindsay’s reply could reach Seaton that night. None the less, three heavy-hearted fellows escorted Wolcott to the carrier’s window at the post-office, after the evening mail had arrived, and gazed eagerly over his shoulder while the clerk drew a bundle of letters from a certain pigeonhole, and, after rapidly slipping one over another, bestowed on the waiting students the regretful nod and smirk of sympathy familiar to disappointed applicants at post-office windows. From the office they crossed the street to the telephone station, and asked if Wolcott Lindsay had been called up by Boston. Receiving here also a negative answer, Wolcott demanded to talk with his father. When the connection was made, Ware squeezed into the booth behind him, while Laughlin, hopelessly crowded out of the narrow quarters, projected his head through the partly closed door.
“Is this you, father?” asked Wolcott. “Did you get my letter?”