Now, the pastor of the church, the Rev. Walter Drury, would have put that differently, he said to himself.  If it produced any bad effects it would need to be corrected, certainly.

Just then, amid the inevitable applause, and the dismissal of the brief formal assembly for the social half-hour, something snapped inside of John Wesley, Jr., and it was the feeling of it which prompted him to say, “If anybody expects me to stay away from Institute this year, he has got a surprise coming, that’s all.”

You see, John Wesley, Jr., had just been graduated from high school, and his family expected him to go to college in the fall, though he faced that expectation without much enthusiasm.  He felt his new freedom.  He addressed his rebellious remark to the League president, Marcia Dayne, a sensible girl whom he had known as long as he had known anybody in the church.

“Last year everybody said I was too young.  They all talked the way he did just now.  But they can’t say I am too young now,” and with that easy skill which is one of the secrets of youth, he managed to contemplate himself, serenely conscious that he was personable and “right.”

The girl turned to him with a gesture of surprise.

“But I thought your father had agreed to let you take that trip to Chicago you have been saving up for.  Will he let you go to the Institute too?”

“Chicago can wait,” said John Wesley, Jr., grandly.  “Dad did say I could go to Chicago to see my cousins, or I could go anywhere else that I wanted.  Well, I am going to the Institute.  It’s my money, and, besides, I am tired of being told I am too young.  A fellow’s got to grow up some time.”

“That’s all right,” said Marcia, “but what’s your special interest in the Institute?  Do you truly want to go?  How do you know what an Institute is like?”

Her voice carried further than Marcia thought, and a man who seemed a little too mature to be one of the young people, turned toward her.  He was smiling, and any time these four years the town would have told you there wasn’t a friendlier smile inside the city limits.  He was in business dress, and suggested anything but the parson in his bearing, but through and through he looked the good minister that he was.

Marcia moved toward him with an unspoken appeal.  She wanted help.  He was waiting for that signal, for he depended a good deal on Marcia.  And he was still worried about that unlucky speech.

“Well, Marcia, are you telling J.W. what the Institute really is?” he asked.

“No, Mr. Drury, I’m not.  I’m too much surprised at finding that he’s about decided to go.  You’re just in time to tell him for me.  I want him to get it right, and straight.”