He paused, as though expecting a reply; but Joe remained silent.

“I have given you plenty of liberty.  I believe in liberty.  The finest souls grow in such soil.  So I have not hedged you in with endless rules and irksome restrictions.  I have asked little of you, and you have come and gone pretty much as you pleased.  In a way, I have put you on your honor, made you largely your own master, trusting to your sense of right to restrain you from going wrong and at least to keep you up in your studies.  And you have failed me.  What do you want me to do?  Set you certain bounds and time-limits?  Keep a watch over you?  Compel you by main strength to go through your books?

“I have here a note,” Mr. Bronson said after another pause, in which he picked up an envelop from the table and drew forth a written sheet.

Joe recognized the stiff and uncompromising scrawl of Miss Wilson, and his heart sank.

His father began to read: 

“Listlessness and carelessness have characterized his term’s work, so that when the examinations came he was wholly unprepared.  In neither history nor arithmetic did he attempt to answer a question, passing in his papers perfectly blank.  These examinations took place in the morning.  In the afternoon he did not take the trouble even to appear for the remainder.”

Mr. Bronson ceased reading and looked up.

“Where were you in the afternoon?” he asked.

“I went across on the ferry to Oakland,” Joe answered, not caring to offer his aching head and body in extenuation.

“That is what is called ‘playing hooky,’ is it not?”

“Yes, sir,” Joe answered.

“The night before the examinations, instead of studying, you saw fit to wander away and involve yourself in a disgraceful fight with hoodlums.  I did not say anything at the time.  In my heart I think I might almost have forgiven you that, if you had done well in your school-work.”

Joe had nothing to say.  He knew that there was his side to the story, but he felt that his father did not understand, and that there was little use of telling him.

“The trouble with you, Joe, is carelessness and lack of concentration.  What you need is what I have not given you, and that is rigid discipline.  I have been debating for some time upon the advisability of sending you to some military school, where your tasks will be set for you, and what you do every moment in the twenty-four hours will be determined for you—­”

“Oh, father, you don’t understand, you can’t understand!” Joe broke forth at last.  “I try to study—­I honestly try to study; but somehow—­I don’t know how—­I can’t study.  Perhaps I am a failure.  Perhaps I am not made for study.  I want to go out into the world.  I want to see life—­to live.  I don’t want any military academy; I ’d sooner go to sea—­anywhere where I can do something and be something.”

Mr. Bronson looked at him kindly.  “It is only through study that you can hope to do something and be something in the world,” he said.