Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/133

Rh before. But I believe he would have rowed in the race if a mistake had not been made. I found out when it was too late that his rigging, or measurements, in the shell was not right for him, and it would have made considerable difference if he could have been shifted in time. It was wholly my fault, and nobody else was to blame in any way. I can never make it up to him, and my only consolation is that you have found what I have learned, that he is a good deal finer man than we thought him, and an honor to Yale beyond all the rest of us. You must hate me, more than any one else in the world. I remember how my mother shared my joys and sorrows in the crew."

The mother put out her hand again, and clasped that of the Coach, as she said simply, but with a catch of emotion in her voice:

"I did hate you to-day. I thought you had broken my boy's heart. Now I have to thank you. God's ways are not our ways, and I rejoice that while I have lost a captain of the crew, I have gained a man, every inch of him, tried in the fire