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Page 35
Will in spite of his light-hearted ways, was seriously troubled and his
father was silent for a brief time before he responded to the boy's
question.
CHAPTER XI
THE PERPETUAL PROBLEM
"I was aware that you were having trouble with your Greek," said Mr.
Phelps quietly, "and that was one of my reasons for stopping over here."
"You were? How did you know?"
"I had received word from the secretary of the faculty. He sent me a
formal note announcing that your work was so low that it was more than
probable you would fail in your mid-year examination."
For a moment Will Phelps was silent. His face became colorless and his
heart seemed almost to rise in his throat. Fail in his mid-year's? A
"warning" sent home to his father? To the inexperienced young student it
seemed for a moment as if he was disgraced in the eyes of all his
friends. He knew that his work had been of a low grade, but never for a
moment had he considered it as being at all serious. So many of his
newly formed friends in the college had been speaking of their
conditions and low grades as a matter of course and had referred to them
laughingly, much as if they were good jokes to be enjoyed that Will too
had come almost to feel that his own trouble was not a serious one. And
Splinter was the one to be blamed for the most of it, he was convinced.
The words of his father, however, had presented the matter in an
entirely different light, and his trouble was vastly increased by its
evident effect upon him. Will's face was drawn and there was an
expression of suffering upon it as he glanced again at his father and
said:
"What shall I do? Will it drop me out of college?"
"I think not necessarily. You must pass off more than half your hours to
enable you to keep on with your class; but failure in one study will not
bring that of itself, for your Greek is a four-hour course. But the
matter is, of course, somewhat serious and in more ways than one."
"Yes, I know it," replied Will despondently.
"Well, if you know it, that's half the battle won already. The greatest
trouble with most unsuccessful men is that they have never learned what
their own weaknesses and limitations are. But you say you know, and I
wish you'd tell me what you think the chief difficulty is."
"My Greek," said Will, trying to smile.
"But what's the trouble with the Greek?"
"The trouble is that the Greek troubles me. I suppose the Greek is all
right and I'm all wrong."
"In what way?"
"I don't know it as I ought to."
"Is that 'Splinter's' fault?"
"No, it's mine. You know how hard I worked in the closing half of my
last year in the high school, but that didn't, and I suppose couldn't,
make up for what I hadn't done before."
"Are you working hard now?"
"On my Greek?"
"Yes."
"I'm putting more time on that than on everything else."
"I didn't ask you about the 'time,' but about the work."
"Why, yes. I don't just see what you mean. I spend three hours on my
Greek every day we have it."
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