The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1895-02-15
5Aiscellanepus.
THE FOOTBALL BOY.

1t was great cross to Mr.. and Mrs.
Bartlett that Roger was apparently
quite devoid of any worthy ambition.
Their two older boys were so utterly
different Fred had been graduated
from Yale with highest honors, and
Horace was making remarkable pro-
greSs at the Scientific school. In fact,
they were both exceptionally fine stu
dents, which made the contrast all the
more striking.
For Roger was sadly unlike his broth
ers He seemed to labor under the I'M
preston that he had been sent to col
legesimply and solely for the purpose of
learning to play football. Apparent
" nothing else had power to kindle
the slightest enthusiasm in bis slug
gish breast, and his father and moth
err argued and eXpostulated with him
in vain.
You are frittering away your val
liable time they argued again and
again, land are letting slip golden OPP
portunities, which, once gone, never
VIII come back to you, and what have
you to show for it all but a broken nose
and fractured collar bone9'
rs there any prospective benefit to
be derived from these hours spent in
scrabbling after football - his father
questioned severely, 10 which Roger
merely responded in his usual off hand
style, who knows but | may be
elected captain of the varsity team
next year?''
us that the height of your ambi-
ton p his parent returned bitterly. Il
am terribly disappointed in you. sir.
Are you to go on playing football for
ever and ever, or what do you propose
to make of your life? Perhaps you
think that your reputation as a foot
ball player will prove an open sesame
to all desirable positions. DO you sup
pose that any one wants fellow who
has wilfully wasted his best opportuni-
ties =? had hoped to make profess
sional man of you-not a professional
athlete-had even aspired to see you
some day in our leading law Office with
my old friend Wilkinson Smalley, but
it's no use. Smalley wants only young
men of the highest PROMISE and Mr..
Bartlett sighed YEARLY.
1T does no good to talk to Roger"
he confided to his wife afterward, ''for
hardly ten minutes had elapsed after
| had been demonstrating with him
about the evils of football before he
| inquired if | wouldn't bring you down
| to see the game ON Saturday and in
| formed me that he had saved two
| tickets for u.s.
Mrs. Bartlett regarded her husband
helplessly. What did you say to him
then p she queried.
| Il told him certainly not" Mr..
Bartlett exclaimed warmly, land | ex-
pressed my surprise at his daring to
suggest such thing. Show me some
lasting benefit, or any abiding good,
that is to be derived from this ridicu-
lous game, told him. and then come
to me to abet you in such folly, but
not till then
And so Mr.. and Mrs. Bartlett failed
to witness that memorable game in
| which their youngest son gained for
himself such enviable laurels. Once
in the field, Roger was like one trans
formed. Keen, alert, cool, raised
splendidly to every emergency, no one
would have known him for the same
slow, Indifferent, easy going specimen
of humanity who grieved the ambi-
tious souls of his parents by his small
aptitude for Greek.
Not that Roger was by any means u
Ounce, for his class standing was fair
" good, but what panied his father
and mother was the recognition OF
what he might have accomplished had
it not been for that arch enemy, foot
ball.
The great game over, the victorious
team fastened back to their gymna-
SUM with all possible speed They
had some little distance to go, as the
gymnasium was not very near the
ball grounds; so that in order to reach
it they were obliged to traverse the
center of the town and cross the rail
| road tracks.
Roger, who had been detained a mo-
ment or so longer than the others,
reached the station short time after
they had crossed and found the plat
forms crowded with people who were
returned from the game, mingled with
those who were alighting from incom-
ing trains AS he stepped upon the
platform he became conscious that
something unusual was going on, and
Immediately preceived that the eyes
of the multitude were riveted upon a
figure half way across the tracks, a fig
ure pausing there in bewilderment.
There's a train coming each wa, )"
somebody gasped. why doesn't he
get off the track
I The station agent and one or two
other officials were shouting loudly,
but the man, who was old and very
deaf, appeared thoroughly dazed. AS
he prepared to step from the track
nearest him he had caught sight of
one train coming down upon him, and
he now staggered baclland was about
to plunge in front of the other down
coming express when suddenly some
thing very unexpected happened.
AS the crowd of bystanders shrank
back with horror stricken faces, con-
WINGED that they were about to witness
the terrible fate which must instantly
overtake the old man, II figure in a
much begrimed canvas jacket sprang
out from among them, and clearing the
tracks at bound alighted beside the
swaying form of the other,
A shudder, and Il wave of pitiful re-
greet swept over the motionless crowd.
He can never drag him back in time,
they breathed They will both be
killed! Oh, the pity of it!''
But our football man had no thought
! IF drapuinp the unsteady fiOura in