he
let me off pro the team would get licked! Gee, that's some modest, isn't
it?"

"You don't have to put it like that," replied Amy impatiently. "Be--be
diplomatic. Tell him----"

"What we ought to do," interrupted Tim, "is get up a petition and have
everyone sign it."

"I thought of that, too," said Amy, "but this dunder-headed Turk won't
stand for even that."

"Why not, Tom?" asked Don.

"Because."

"And after that?" asked Amy sweetly.

"Well, look here, you chaps." Tom scowled intently for a moment. "Look
here. It's this way. Josh put a bunch of us on pro, didn't he? Well,
what right have I to go and ask to be let off just because I happen to
be a football man? You don't suppose those other fellows like it any
better than I do, do you?"

"Oh, forget that! I'm one of them, and I'm having the time of my life.
It's been the making of me, Tom. I'm getting so blamed full of learning
that I'll be able to loaf all the rest of the year; live on my income,
so to say." And Amy beamed proudly.

"That's all right," answered Tom doggedly, "but I don't intend to
cry-baby. I'm just as much in it as any of you. If Josh wants to let us
all off, all right, but I'm not going to ask for a--a special
dispensation!"

"You don't need to," said Tim. "Let the fellows do it. That has nothing
to do with you. What's to keep us from going ahead and getting up a
petition?"

"Because I ask you not to," replied Tom simply. "It's only fair that we
should all be punished alike."

"But you're not," said Don.

"We're not? Why aren't we?" asked Tom in surprise.

"Because you're getting it harder than Amy and Harry Westcott and the
others," answered Don quietly. "They aren't barred from any sport, and
you are."

"By Jove, that's a fact!" exclaimed Amy.

"But--but we all got the same sentence," protested Tom.

"I know you did, but"--Don smiled--"put it like this. I hate parsnips;
can't bear them. Suppose you and I were punished for something we'd done
by being made to eat parsnips three times a day for--for a month! You
like them, don't you? Well, who'd get the worst of that? The sentence
would be the same, but the--the punishment would be a heap worse for me,
wouldn't it?"

"'Father was right'!" said Tim.

"Oh, father never spoke a truer word!" cried Amy, jumping up from the
window-seat. "That settles it, Tom! Get some paper, Tim, and we'll write
that petition this minute and I'll guarantee to get fifty signatures
before ten