“There was only one anxiety I had about it,” Pastor Drury said, “and that has been all taken away.  I was keen to have this be a truly Christian demonstration—­not just a settlement or a parish house or night school classes, but a real demonstration of Christian service among people who now know little about it.  In some places these activities are being set going because church people know they ought to do something, and it is easier to give money and have gymnasiums and moving pictures than to make real proof of partnership with Christ by personal service and sacrifice.  Take your old friend Martin Luther Shenk, J.W.—­do you know that he’s working at this very difficulty?  And I hear he’s finding, even in the country, that some people will really give themselves, while others will give only their money and their time.”

J.W. thought of Win-My-Chum week, and how he had had to drive himself to speak to Marty, so he knew the pastor was right.  And he went home with all sorts of questions running through his mind, but with no very satisfying answers to make them.

Coming back in a wakeful night to Mr. Drury’s casual mention of Marty, the thought of his chum set him to wondering how that sturdy young itinerant was making it go on the Ellis and Valencia Circuit, just as the pastor guessed it might.  To wonder was to decide.  He would take a long-desired holiday.  A word or two with his father in the morning gave him the excuse for what he wanted to do.  Then he got Valencia on the long distance, and the operator told him she would find the “Reverend” Shenk for him in a few minutes.  He had started out that morning to visit along the State Line Highway, as it was part of her business to know.  At the third try Marty was found, and he answered J.W.’s hail with a shout.

After the first exchange of noisy greetings, “Say, Marty, dad’s asked me to run down in your part of the world and look at some new barn furniture that’s been put in around Ellis—­ventilators and stanchions and individual drinking cups for the Holsteins—­not like the way we used to treat the cows on our farm, hey?  Well, what do you say if I turn fashionable for once and come down for the week-end—­not this week, but next?”

No need to ask Marty a question like that.  “Come on down.  Make it Friday and I’ll show you the sights.  We’ve got something doing at the Ellis Church, something I want you to see.”

Then Marty thought of a few books that he had left at home—­“And—­hello, J.W., are you listening?  Well, how’d you like to go out to the farm before you come down here?  Jeanette has gathered a bundle of my books, and I need ’em.  Won’t you get ’em for me and bring them along?”

Certainly, J.W. would.  The farm was home to both the boys, and J.W. was almost as welcome there as Marty; to one member of the family quite so, though she had never mentioned it.

On the next Sunday morning J.W. drove out of town in time to get to the little old church of his childhood for morning service.  Then he would go home with the Shenks for dinner, spend the afternoon, get the books and come home when he was ready.  There was no hurry.  J.W., Sr., had given him two Sundays’ leave of absence from Sunday school.  The next Sunday would be his and Marty’s, but this would be his and Jeannette’s.