Bob
Hendricks wandered away together, and sometimes they walked out under
the stars and talked as boys will talk of their little world and the
big world about them, or sometimes they sat reading at one or the
other's home, and one would walk home with the other, and the other
walk a piece of the way back. They read poetry and mooned; "Lalla
Rookh" appealed to John because of its music and melody, and both boys
devoured Byron, and gobbled over the "Corsair" and the "Giaour" and
"Childe Harold" with the book above the table, and came back from the
barn on Sundays licking their chops after surreptitiously nibbling
"Don Juan." But they had Captain Mayne Reid and Kingsley as an
antidote, and they soon got enough of Byron.

The two boys persuaded each other to go away to school, and John chose
the state university because it was cheap and because he heard he
could get work in Lawrence to carry him through. He did not recollect
that his mother had any influence in the matter; but in those days she
always seemed to be sitting by the lamp in their little home, sewing,
with his shirts and underwear strewn about her. She had a permanent
place in the town schools, and the Barclay home had grown to a kitchen
and two bedrooms as well as the big room with its fireplace. His
mother's hair was growing gray at the temples, but her clear, firm,
unwrinkled skin and strong broad jaw kept youth in her countenance,
and as Martin Culpepper wrote in the Biography, where he names the
pioneers of Sycamore Ridge whose lives influenced Watts McHurdie's,
"the three graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity, were mirrored in her
smile."

One night when the boy came in tired after his night's ramble, he left
his mother, as he often did those last nights before he went away to
school, bending over her work, humming a low happy-noted song, even
though the hour was late. He lay in his bed beside the open window
looking out into the night, dreaming with open eyes about life.
Perhaps he actually dreamed a moment, for he did not hear her come
into the room; but he felt her bend over him, and a tear dropped on
his face from hers. He turned toward her, and she put her arms about
his neck. Then she sobbed: "Oh, good-by, my little boy--good-by. I am
coming here to bid you good-by, every night now." He kissed her hand,
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. An