So you might find them at Epworth League socials, Sunday school class doings, in the Sunday school orchestra—­violin and b-flat cornet respectively—­and, most significant of all in its effect on all the later years, they went through Win-My-Chum week together.  The hand of the pastor was in that, too.

Marty was not a Christian.  J.W. had been a church member for years, and early in his course he had faced and accepted all that being a Christian seemed to mean to a high-school boy.

There had been hard places to get over; some of the boys and girls were merciless in their unconscious tests of his religion.  Some were openly scornful, and others sought by indirect and furtive means to break his influence in the school.  For he had no small gift of leadership, and he cared a good deal that it should count for the decencies of high-school life.  By senior year the sort of trouble that a Christian boy encounters in school was almost all ended, but it had been more through his dogged resistance to opposition than because of any special zest in Christian service.

And then came the announcement of Win-My-Chum week, with J.W. confronted by two stubborn facts.  He had only one real chum, and that chum was not a Christian.  Pastor Drury had let fall a remark, a month before the Week, to the effect that any Christian who had a chum could dodge Win-My-Chum week, but he couldn’t dodge his chum.  When the week was past, the chum would still be on hand.

Think as he would, there was no honest way of escape from whatever those facts might require of him, so J.W., long accustomed to go ahead and take what came, had known himself bound by the obligations of this matter also, days and days before the activities of Win-My-Chum week began.

The two were out one Saturday on the north road.  They had been up to the woods on Barker’s Hill for nuts, and with good success.  The day was warm, the way was long, and there was no hurry.  When they came to the roadside at the wood’s edge they sat on a fallen tree and talked.  At least Marty did.  For J.W. was not himself.

It was his chance, and he knew it.  But a thousand impulses leaped to life within him to make him put off what he knew he ought to say.  The fear of being misunderstood—­even by Marty—­the knowledge that Marty, in the qualities by which boys judge and are judged, was quite as “good” as himself; and, above all, his sense of total unfitness to be a pattern of the Christian life to anybody, filled him with an uneasiness that actually hurt.

And Marty soon discovered that something was amiss.  Willing as he was to do his full share of the talking, he became aware that except for inarticulate commonplaces he was having to do it all.

“What’s the matter with you all at once, J.W.?” he asked.  “You’re not taken suddenly sick, are you?  You were all right when we were among the trees. Are you sick?”

J.W. laughed shortly.  “No, old man, I’m not sick.  But I’m up against a new game, for me, and I’m not in training.”