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.
“Now don’t misunderstand my position. I am no champion of effeminacy. I do not ask that you be shielded and coddled—in your own words ‘wrapped in lamb’s wool and shut up in a bureau drawer.’ I want you able to take your share in the rough things of life. There are hard knocks to be endured in almost all athletic exercises; in many, such as riding, sailing, swimming, there is actual risk. But the risk in these sports is slight and occasional—not much greater than that incurred in the ordinary course of life. In football the danger seems to be serious and constant. It is by no means necessary that you should play on the Seaton eleven; there are other sports in which you can develop strength and skill; there are other boys ready to take your place on the team. Desirous though I am to gratify your wishes in every reasonable way, it seems to me that I have no right to allow you to risk life or limb in a dangerous pastime.
“It may be that, as you say, many other competent—I might perhaps add more competent—observers do not hold my views. I am inclined to think, however, that the older men, who are unaffected by the glamour of the arena or who have opportunities to trace the results of these ‘slight injuries,’ will be found on my side. At the same time I do not wish to seem arbitrary or tyrannical. If you can find among the best half-dozen surgeons in the city—men like Hinds or Rawson or Seaver or Brayton—a single man who can assure me that you are risking nothing or little by playing the game, I will waive my objection. I want to be reasonable and sympathetic. I would not hold you, in the present-day conditions, to all the limitations of school and college life which I look back upon as proper and beneficial in my own boyhood; but I would not have you pay the price of a single broken bone or twisted sinew for all the football trophies of the season.
“Kindly thank your friends for the interesting and clever letters they have written me, and express to them my appreciation of their loyal friendship to you. I trust they will forgive me for not yielding to their arguments, and that you may not find the sacrifice I am requiring of you as hard as you fear.
“Affectionately,
”W. Lindsay.”
“That settles it,” said Ware, heaving a sigh as Wolcott ceased reading. “When your father makes up his mind that his facts are the only ones, you may as well knuckle under.”