“Put those things down,” said Laughlin to the last speaker. “You act as secretary, Dan.”
“There are some accidents in games where little, young fellows are played against heavy teams,” said Poole; “but that’s the fault of the management.”
“None of these conditions are found here,” commented Laughlin, “and as a result we don’t have accidents of any account. Got that down, Dan?”
“There’s one thing you’ve forgotten,” suggested Wolcott. “There are the accidents that come from foul play.”
“Dirty football!” ejaculated Laughlin. “That’s true; but we shan’t have that in the game with Hillbury.”
“Put it down, just the same,” said Poole. “Let’s give him all the facts.”
“Now about the newspaper stories,” said Ware, looking up after a few minutes of scribbling, during which he had translated “dirty football” into terms less concise but more comprehensible to Mr. Lindsay. “Wouldn’t it be well to send him Walter Camp’s investigations of football accidents reported in the newspapers, and those figures that a Western college professor[1] got out? I have them both somewhere.”
Professor Edwin Grant Dexter, of the University of Illinois, in the _Educational Review_, April, 1903.
“That’s good,” said Laughlin, “and give him a good straight statement of this poor chap’s condition. Collins said to-day he never saw a fellow thrive on the game like Lindsay. Gaining all the time, aren’t you, Wolcott?”
Wolcott nodded without a smile. His heart was wholly with the arguments, but that they would prove effective he had little hope. He knew well the strength of his father’s convictions, the honesty and sincerity of his desire to do the best possible for his only son. He could hardly be imagined as yielding to the arguments and sentiments of a lot of boys.
“Who’ll explain about that slap in the head and taking him out of the Harvard Second game?” asked Ware.
“I’ll do that,” said Laughlin, “in my part.”
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?