thereafter he rarely had time to eat all that was set
before him, though possessed of a boy's healthy appetite. It was simply
that the other possibilities of the hour seemed more alluring than mere
food.

From the first day of the class work J.W. found himself keen for all
that was going on. There was variety enough so that he felt no
weariness, and the range of new interests opened up each day kept him at
constant and pleasurable attention. Without knowing just how, he was
catching the Institute spirit.

He walked away from the dining hall one noon with his pastor-friend, and
he talked. He had to talk to somebody, and Walter Drury contrived to
know of his need.

"Why, Mr. Drury," he said, eagerly, "I'm just finding out how little I
know about the church and real Christian work. I thought I was something
of an average Methodist boy, but if the people at home are no better
than I am, I can see how being a preacher to such a bunch is a man's
job."

"Correct, J.W." said the minister. "I find that out many a time, to my
humbling. But honestly, now, are you learning things you never knew
before?"

"Ye-es, I am," J.W. answered, "and then, again, I'm not. It seems to me
as if I had always known a lot of what we are getting in these classes,
though there is plenty of new stuff too. But until now I didn't get much
out of what I knew. I've always liked to hear you, but you're different.
As for most of the things I've heard, I just thought of it as religious
talk, church stuff, you know. It didn't seem to matter, but here it is
beginning to matter in all sorts of ways, and I can see that it matters
to me."

"How, for instance?"

Well, take the class in home missions; Americanization, they call it.
Maybe you noticed that the first thing the teacher did was to divide the
class right down the middle, and tell those on the left hand--yes, I'm
one of the goats--that for the rest of the week they were to consider
themselves aliens. The others were to play native-born Americans. And so
the study started, but believe me, we aliens have already begun to make
it interesting for those natives. Some of 'em want to come over on our
side already, but they can't. A few of us have found some immigration
dope in the college library, and it is pretty strong. We'll show up
those Pilgrim Fathers before the week is out. They think they have done
everything an alien could ask when they let him into the country, and
then they work him twelve h