So let him wreck them, heels and toes, and scuff their soles away, I'll not begrudge the bill for shoes that I'm compelled to pay, For I rejoice that it's my lot, when mother breaks the news, To have a healthy, roguish boy who's always needing shoes. _Football_ I'd rather fancied it would come, a healthy boy who's ten years old Forecasts the things he'll want to do without his secrets being told; And so last night when I got home and found his mother strangely still, I guessed somehow that mother love had battled with a youngster's will. "You'll have to settle it," said she; "there's nothing more that I can say, The game of football's calling him and he insists he wants to play." We've talked it over many a time; we've hoped he wouldn't choose the game, And I suppose there's not a boy whose parents do not feel the same. They dread, as we, the rugged sport; they wonder, too, just what they'll say When son of theirs comes home, as ours, and begs to be allowed to play. And now the question's up to me, a question that I can't evade, But football is a manly game and I am glad he's not afraid. He wants to play, he says to me; he knows the game is rough and grim, But worse than hurt and broken bones is what his friends will think of him; "They'd call me yellow," he explained, "if I stay out." Of all things here There's nothing quite so hard to bear as is the heartless gibe or jeer, And though I cannot spare him pain or hurt when tackles knock him flat, Being his father, I've said "yes," because I choose to spare him that. _She Never Gave Me a Chance_ It happened that I came along as school was letting out And laughing boys and smiling girls raced everywhere about; But two there were who walked along the road in front of me And one young head was bowed to earth, a troubled lad was he; And as I stepped around the pair to hasten on my way: "She never gave a chance to me!" I heard the youngster say. Oh, I have been a boy myself, and I have been to school And I have suffered punishment for breaking many a rule; I've worn the brand of mischief and been written down as bad, So I could reconstruct the scene--the teacher and the lad, The swift avenging punishment, the stern and angry glance, The blot of shame upon a boy sent home without a chance. I did not stop to ask the lad his little tale to tell, There was no need of that because I knew the story well-- "She never gave a chance to me!" that sentence held it all. A hundred times I'd lived the scene in days when I was small, A broken rule, a teacher vexed, hot rage where calm belonged, A guilty judgment blindly made--a youngster sadly wronged.