his happy-go-lucky way, regardless of what it might have said to him
if he had had ears to hear. Then, when, worn and faded by many
washings, it outgrew its usefulness as he outgrew his boyhood, one
spring morning his mother packed it carefully away in folds of old
linen and lavender.

It was toward the middle of John Marshall's freshman year at college.
The boy "all wriggle and racket" was a strong, athletic young fellow
now, still with the same propensities of his restless boyhood. His
overflowing animal spirits made him a jolly companion, and he found
himself popular from the start. There was no need now for petty
economies in the Marshall homestead. Business had been prosperous
since that one hard winter when Johnny made patchwork to pay for his
gun, and he found himself now with as liberal an allowance as any one
in his class.

"I'm in for having a royal good time," he wrote to Rhoda, who was
home-keeper now, for it had been two years since her mother's death,
and Rhoda had done her best to fill the vacant place to them all. "And
you needn't preach to me, Sis," he wrote. "I'm all right, and I'm not
going to get into the trouble which you cheerfully predict. I shall
not get into any scrapes that I can't skin out of; but a fellow would
be a fool who didn't squeeze as much fun as possible out of his
college life."

As he was finishing this letter, three students, who were foremost in
all the fun going, came tumbling unceremoniously into his room. "Say,
you there, Marshall," cried the first one, "hustle up and get ready
for a lark to-night. You know that Sophomore Wilson, the long-faced
fellow the boys call Squills? He's rooming in the old Baptist