It is not that he means to make trouble.

Despite his many blunders into mischief, he is always at the head of his class, for he has a motive for hard study that the other pupils know nothing of.
Every evening Bud and Ivy watch for his home-coming with eager faces flattened against the cabin window, lit up by the red glare of the sunset.

They see him come running up the road, snapping his cold fingers, and turning occasional handsprings into the snow-drifts in the fence corners.
Just before he comes whistling up the path with his face twisted into all sorts of ugly grimaces to make them laugh, he stops at the gate a moment.

Do they wonder what he always sees across those snowy fields, as he stands and looks away towards Mars' Nat's cottage and the white churchyard on the hill?
Ah, Bud and Ivy have not had their awakening; but the little brother and sister are not the only ones who fail to see more than the surface of John Jay's nature.

Under the bubbles of his gay animal spirits runs the deep current of a strong purpose, and in these moments he is keeping silent tryst with a memory.