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. And you will seem strange, and I will seem strange." She paused a moment to let the cramp in her throat leave, then she went on: "I was going to say so many things--when this time came, but they're all gone. But oh, my boy, my little tender-hearted boy--be a good man--just be a good man, John." And then she sobbed for an unrestrained minute: "O God, when you take my boy away, keep him clean, and brave, and kind, and--O God, make him--make him a good man." And with a pat and a kiss she rose and said as she left him, "Now good night, Johnnie, go to sleep." * * * * * In the Sycamore Ridge _Banner_ for September 12, 1867, appeared some verses by Watts McHurdie, beginning:-- "Hail and farewell to thee, friend of my youth, Pilgrim who seekest the Fountain of Truth, Hail and farewell to thy innocent pranks, No more can I send thee for left-handed cranks. Farewell, and a tear laves the ink on my pen, For ne'er shall I 'noint thee with strap-oil again."