Jack met Big Bob while on his way to the appointed rendezvous of the football boys, where smiling Joe Hooker had also agreed to join them for the parade. Indeed, he had a suspicion that Bob had come out of his way in the hope of finding him at home. This was proven by the first words the other spoke.
"Well, this is luck, Jack," said Bob, as he saw, by the light of a street lamp, whom he had run across. "I was on my way around to make sure you'd come out and join the boys. Then, again, I just wanted to have a few words with you about—you know what I mean, Jack."
"Has anything happened, Bob?" asked the other, quickly.
"If you mean has the mystery been cleared up, I'm sorry to tell you no," Big Bob replied. "But there has been a great change in my home affairs, Jack. It's really wonderful, to me anyhow, because all my life it seems that my father has held me at arms' lengths. Why, Jack, what do you think, when I got home tonight, dirty as anything, and with this bruise on my cheek where I struck the ground that time we had the big smash, would you believe it, he actually shook my hand with a vim, and told me he was proud of me. Why, I tell you that was worth all I did in my humble capacity, to help win the victory, yes, a dozen times over."
Jack did not laugh, although it seemed very humorous to hear a boy make such a strange statement as that. Why, most fathers would have said that much and ten times over; indeed, few could ever have allowed such a gap of coldness to arise between themselves and their own children. It was high time Mr. Jeffries awoke to a realization of the fact that he had a boy of whom any father might well be proud. Yes, he had shirked his duty as a parent long enough; and Jack was glad to know the scales were being lifted from his eyes.
To himself Jack was saying that already it seemed as though great good was coming out of Big Bob's misfortune. What would a dozen lost letters count in comparison with the knowledge that his father had begun to know him, and that the gulf hitherto existing between them was in a fair way of being definitely bridged?
"It's strange how suddenly your father has become interested in boys' sports, Bob," he went on to tell the other. "I happened to run across Mr. Holliday this morning after I saw you, and he told me something that interested me a good deal."
"About my dad, do you mean, Jack?"
"Yes, about him, Bob. Did you ever know he had contributed money toward paying off what is still due on the new gymnasium? You know Mr. Holliday is the chairman of the citizens' committee that has the financial end of the undertaking in charge."
"Do you really mean it, Jack? My father give money for such a project as that, when I've heard him say many a time that I was wasting every cent I put in baseball togs and such things; and that when he was a boy they had only a pair of skates, or a home-made sled, to have sport with. Tell me more, Jack, please; you've got me all in a flutter now."