C. To send his son back to the cemetery
I think the answer would be your final choice.
Answer:
"Why is it", author William Lyon Phelps inquired, "that so many people are afraid to admit they are happy?".
The line is a quote from "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Thayer. The best explanation for "the sickly silence that falls on the mudville fans" is that the mudville baseball team were not even trying to win the game that they were playing.