“You can count yourself most fortunate that the results were not more serious. But I won’t dwell upon what might have happened. What did happen was quite enough to give you food for thought, and to point the moral of your experience. And that is that before you go ahead you should do your best to be sure you’re right.” “After this I’ll be sure!” Mr. Parker smiled a little oddly. “I ask only, Sam, that you do your best to be sure. Often you have to take risks--the practical point is to avoid the unnecessary risks. Hear me through! At sixteen you’re not going to develop the wisdom and foresight of a grown man. I’m not going to demand the impossible. I am going, though, to urge you to profit by the mistakes you’ve made--and that, Sam, is the one best use to make of mistakes.” “You mean, not to repeat ’em?” “That is precisely my meaning.” “Trust me!” cried Sam, with conviction. “I am going to trust you,” said his father. “In the first place, I am going to assume that we have no need to talk about punishment; perhaps you’ve had a reasonable amount of it as it is, for I suspect you have passed some very trying hours. At the same time, though, I’m not prepared to treat this affair as a wholly closed chapter. I think it will be better for all concerned if you regard yourself, for the next few months, as on probation.” “I don’t quite understand.” “Well, in other words, you may consider yourself as under test. And the test will be the extent to which you have profited by what has taken place.” “Oh!” said Sam. “Then you’re waiting to see if I’ve really learned the lesson?” “You have the idea.” Sam knit his brows. “It’s awfully kind of you, Father--it’s greater mercy than I’d hoped for. I--I’ll try my prettiest to deserve it. And--and will everything go on just as--just as before?” “As nearly as may be. Only that brings me to my second point. It has to do with St. Mark’s.” “Oh!” said Sam again, a bit apprehensively, it must be admitted. “I think,” said his father slowly, “that for the present we’ll hold in abeyance any plans for sending you away to school. Don’t regard this as a punishment; it is merely part of the probation. St. Mark’s, as you know, allows its students much liberty. It treats them almost as if they were men. And, frankly, Sam, it remains for you to prove that you deserve such confidence. As the boys say, it’s up to you.” The blow to the boy’s hopes was harder than his father realized. For months Sam had been counting upon an early transfer to the famous preparatory school. At his books, and in sports, he had striven with an eye to the St. Mark’s standards; he had read everything concerning the academy upon which he could lay hands; he had thought of St. Mark’s by day and dreamed of it at night. And now, of a sudden, he learned that his goal was not near, but at a distance which seemed to be all the more unhappy because of its vagueness. Yet, very pluckily, he rallied from the shock.