'I want you to cut this out and pay
attention to your studies. I want you to go to college when you're
through high school, and I don't want any foolishness about it. Without
an education, you won't be able to get a good job, and then you'll
_never_ amount to anything.'

"'I already have a job,' I'd say.

"'You've got a job? What are you talking about?'

"I'm going to be a ballplayer,' I'd explain. But Dad was not very
receptive.

"'A ballplayer?' he'd say, throwing his hands up in the air. 'What do
you mean? How can you make a living as a ballplayer? I don't understand
why a grown man would wear those funny-looking suits in the first
place.'

"'Well,' I'd answer. 'You see policemen with uniforms on, and other
people like that. They change after they're through working. It's the
same way with ballplayers.'"

"That sounds reasonable to me," said Tweaty.

"Me, too," said Queen Ozma. "I certainly don't wear the same clothes to
a meeting with a foreign dignitary as I would wear while playing marbles
with Jellia Jamb."

"Certainly not!" agreed Nibbles.

"If only my father had thought that way," sighed Rube's shadow. "But he
just scoffed. 'Do ballplayers get paid?' he'd ask.

"'Yes,' I told him. 'They get paid.'

"'I don't believe it!' he would rant.

"And 'round and 'round we would go. We'd actually have that same
argument, almost always word-for-word, at least once a week. Twice a
week in the summer. Sometimes my grandfather--my father's father--would
get involved in it. My grandfather was a nice man who liked baseball,
and he would usually take my side.

"'Listen,' he'd say to my father, 'when you were a youngster, I wanted
you to be something, too. I wanted you to be a stonecutter, same as I
was when I came over from the old country.' Oh, did I mention before
that my grandfather was a stonecutter?"

"No," replied Elephant. "You just said that he was a nice man who liked
baseball."

"Okay," said Rube's shadow. "Well, my grandfather had been a
stonecutter, and had tried to persuade Dad to become one, too. 'But no!'
he would say loudly into my father's ear, 'You wouldn't listen. You
wanted to be an engineer. So you _became_ an engineer. And a darned good
one, too. Had I forced you into masonry, you would never have excelled
in the craft for which you had no love. And you would have been very
unhappy. Now Richard wants to be a baseball player. He's so determined
that nothing is going to stop him. Let's g