The cover image was restored by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
TAKE IT FROM DAD
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
Copyright, 1920,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1920.
TAKE IT FROM DAD
Lynn, Mass.
September 25, 19—
Dear Ted:
Your letter asking me if I think you are a failureat school, and wanting to know whether I can giveyou a job in the factory, came this morning.
"Yes," to the first, and, "I can but I won't" to thesecond. I didn't send you to Exeter to have youleave in a week; and as for the factory, I guess itcan stagger along a couple of years more withoutyou, although I sure do appreciate your wanting towork. It's so different from anything else you haveever wanted, and as Lew Dockstader once said,"Variety is the spice of vaudeville."
Sure, Exeter is a rotten place in the fall, when itrains eight days a week, and there's nothing exceptsoggy leaves and mud everywhere, and a continuouslyweeping sky that's about as cheerful as theGermans at the peace table. You don't know anyone well enough yet to say three words to, and yourteachers seem to be playing a continual run of luck,by always calling on you for the part of the lessonyou haven't learned.
Sure it's rotten; not Exeter, but what's the matterwith you. It begins with an "h" and ends with a"k," but like other diseases, lockjaw excepted, andyou'll never have that anyway, it's just as well tocatch it young and get it over with.
Then, too, I guess you're beginning to realize thatthe leader of the Lynn High School Glee Club andleft end of the football team isn't so big a frog, afterall, when