the dim Past, but you heed them not!

* * * * *

The Reverend John Hancock of Lexington had two sons. John Hancock (Number
Two) became pastor of the church of the North Precinct of the town of
Braintree, which afterwards was to be the town of Quincy.

The nearest neighbor to the village preacher was John Adams, shoemaker and
farmer. Each Sunday in the amen corner of the Reverend John Hancock's
meetinghouse was mustered the well washed and combed brood of Mr. and Mrs.
Adams. Now, this John Adams had a son whom the Reverend John Hancock
baptized, also named John, two years older than John, the son of the
preacher. And young John Adams and John Hancock (Number Three) used to
fish and swim together, and go nutting, and set traps for squirrels, and
help each other in fractions. And then they would climb trees, and
wrestle, and sometimes fight. In the fights, they say, John Hancock used
to get the better of his antagonist, but as an exploiter of fractions John
Adams was more than his equal.

The parents of John Adams were industrious and savin'--the little farm
prospered, for Boston supplied a goodly market, and weekly trips were made
there in a one-horse cart, often piloted by young John, with the
minister's boy for ballast. The Adams family had ambitions for their son
John--he was to go to Harvard and be educated, and be a minister and
preach at Braintree, or Weymouth, or perhaps even Boston!

In the meantime the Reverend John Hancock had died, and the widowed mother
was not able to give her boy a college education--times were hard.