“Well,” the pastor responded, “I’m glad of that.  If he’s really going, he’ll find out that definitions are not descriptions.  Now, our Saint Sheridan used to say that an Institute was a combination of college, circus, and camp meeting.  I would venture a different putting of it.  An Institute is a bit of young democracy in action.  Its people play together, for play’s sake and for finding their honest human level.  They study together, to become decently intelligent about some of the real business of the kingdom of God, and how the church proposes to transact that business.  They wait for new vision together, the Institute being a good time and a good place for seeing life clear and seeing it whole.”

“Yes,” said Marcia, “that’s exactly it, only I never could have found quite the right words.  Do you think J.W. will find it too poky and preachy?”

“Tell him to try it and see, as you did last year,” said Pastor Drury.

“I’ll risk that,” said John Wesley, Jr., in his newly resolute mood.

He knew when to stop, this preacher.  Particularly concerned as he was about John Wesley, Jr., he saw that this was one of the many times when that young man would need to work things out for himself.  Marcia would give what help might be called for at the moment.  The boy was turning toward the Institute; so far so good.

To-night was nearly four years from the beginning of his interest in this young fellow with the Methodist name.  He was a special friend of the family, though no more so than of every family in the town which gave him the slightest encouragement.  To a degree which no one suspected he shared this family’s secret hopes for its son and heir; and he cherished hopes which even the Farwells could not suspect.  Unless he was much mistaken he had found the subject for his Experiment.

That mention of the Farwells needs to be explained.  Of course “John Wesley, Jr.,” was only part of the boy’s name.  In full he was John Wesley Farwell, Jr., son of John Wesley Farwell, Sr., of the J.W.  Farwell Hardware Co.  As a little fellow he had no chance to escape “Junior,” since he was named for his father.  There were many Jacks and Johns and Johnnies about.  His mother, good Methodist that she was, secretly enjoyed calling him “John Wesley, Jr.,” and before long the neighbors and the neighborhood children followed her example.

A little later he might have been teased out of it, but at the impossible age when boys discover that queer names and red hair and cross-eyes make convenient excuses for mutual torture, it happened that he had attained to the leadership of his gang.  For some reason he took pride in his two Methodist names, and made short work of those who ventured to take liberties with them.  In all other respects he played without reserve boyhood’s immemorial game of give and take; but as to his name or any part thereof he would tolerate no foolishness and no back talk.  When he reached the high school period, however, most of his intimates rarely called him by his full name, having, like all high school people, no time for long names, though possessed of infinite leisure for long dreams.  Straightway they shortened his name to “J.W.,” which to this day is all that his friends find necessary.