organized a literary society, of which he was president and Ellen
Culpepper secretary, and a constitution was adopted exempting the
president and secretary from work in the society. It was natural
enough that Bob Hendricks should be made treasurer, and that these
three officers should be the programme committee, and then a long line
of vice-presidents and assistant secretaries and treasurers and
monitors was elected by the society.

So John became the social leader of the group of boys and girls who
were just coming out of kissing games into dances at one another's
homes in the town. John decided who should be in the "crowd" and who
might be invited only when a mixed crowd was expected. Fathers
desiring trade, and mothers faithful to church ties, protested; but
John Barclay had his way. It was his crowd. They called themselves the
"Spring Chickens," and as John had money saved to spend as he pleased,
he dictated many things; but he did not spend his money, he lent it,
and his barn was stored with, skates and sleds and broken guns and
scrap-iron held as security, while his pockets bulged with knives
taken as interest.

As the winter waned and the Spring Chickens waxed fat in social
honours, Bob Hendricks glanced up from his algebra one day, and
discovered that little Molly Culpepper had two red lips and two
pig-tail braids of hair that reached below her waist. Then and there
he shot her deftly with a paper wad, chewed and fired through a cane
pipe-stem, and waited till she wiped it off her cheek with her apron
and made a face at him, before he plunged into the mysteries of _x_2 +
2_xy_ + _y_2. And thus another old story began, as new and as fresh as
when Adam and Eve walked together in the garden.