Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/290

 home with a new lease of life, and with brains invigorated to such degrees that they were ready to grapple with any thing that might come before them during the school term, which was to begin on the following Monday.

During the year affairs in Mount Airy moved along in much the same way that they do in every little village which can boast of a popular high school and rival organizations of almost every kind. After the canoe meet, the line was sharply drawn between the two opposing factions. They did not come to open warfare, but they were intensely hostile, and a very little thing would have precipitated a fight between Joe Wayring and his friends on one side, and Noble, Scott, Prime and Tom Bigden and his cousins on the other; for the latter did not long remain at swords' points with the boys who made their head-quarters at the drug store. They had a stormy time when they first came together, and Tom announced his readiness to thrash all the boys who had interfered with Loren during the paddle race, provided they would come one at a time; but Prime and a few others exerted themselves to bring