and she was silent a moment, and then she spoke: "I know this is the
last of it all, John. You will never come back to me again--not you,
but a man. And you will seem strange, and I will seem strange." She
paused a moment to let the cramp in her throat leave, then she went
on: "I was going to say so many things--when this time came, but
they're all gone. But oh, my boy, my little tender-hearted boy--be a
good man--just be a good man, John." And then she sobbed for an
unrestrained minute: "O God, when you take my boy away, keep him
clean, and brave, and kind, and--O God, make him--make him a good
man." And with a pat and a kiss she rose and said as she left him,
"Now good night, Johnnie, go to sleep."

* * * * *

In the Sycamore Ridge _Banner_ for September 12, 1867, appeared some
verses by Watts McHurdie, beginning:--

"Hail and farewell to thee, friend of my youth,
Pilgrim who seekest the Fountain of Truth,
Hail and farewell to thy innocent pranks,
No more can I send thee for left-handed cranks.
Farewell, and a tear laves the ink on my pen,
For ne'er shall I 'noint thee with strap-oil again."

It was a noble effort, and in his notes to the McHurdie poems
following the Biography published over thirty years after those lines
were written, Colonel Culpepper writes: "This touching, though
somewhat humorous, poem was written on the occasion of the departure
for college of one who since has become listed with the world's great
captains of finance--none other than Honourable John Barclay, whose