. "That is
just the thing: 'obey, obey.' Well, I will. I will be a stick, a dolt. I
will be as unlike what God intended me to be as possible. I will be just
what your father and Aunt Hester and you want me to be. I will let them
think for me and save my soul. I am too much an imbecile to attempt to
work out my own salvation. No, Elizabeth, I will not play ball any more.
I can imagine the horrified commotion it caused among the angels when
they looked down and saw me pitching. When I get back to school I shall
look up the four Gospels' views on ball-playing."

"Fred, I don't like you when you talk that way."

"I won't do that any more, either." He rose abruptly. "Good-bye,
Elizabeth. I am off." He was afraid to stay, lest more bitter words
should come to his lips.

"Good-bye, Fred," she said. "I hope you understand."

The young man wondered as he walked homeward if the girl he had chosen
was not a little bit prim. Then he thought of her father, and said to
himself, even as people would have said of himself, "How can she help
it, with such a father?"

All his brightness had been dashed. He was irritated because the thing
was so small, so utterly absurd. It was like the sting of a miserable
little insect,--just enough to smart, and not enough to need a strong
remedy. The news of the game had also preceded him home, and his
guardian's opinion of the propriety of his action did not tend to soothe
his mind. Mrs. Hodges forcibly expressed herself as follows: "I put
baseball-playin' right down with dancin' and sich like. It ain't no
fittin' occupation for any one that 's a-goin' into the ministry. It 's
idleness, to begin with; it 's a-wastin' the precious time that 's been
given us for a better use. A young man that 's goin' to minister to
people's souls ought to be consecrated to the work before he begins it.
Who ever heerd tell of Jesus playin' baseball?"

Among a certain class of debaters such an argument is always supposed to
be clinching, unanswerable, final. But Mr. Hodges raised his voice in
protest. "I ain't a-goin' to keep still no longer. I don't believe the
boy 's done a bit o' harm. There 's lots of things the Lord did n't do
that He did n't forbid human bein's to do. We ain't none of us divine,
but you mark my words, Freddie, an' I say it right here so 's yore aunt
Hester can hear me too, you mark my words: ef you never do nothin' worse
than what you 've been a-doin' to-day, it 'll be mighty easy for you to