“I never know whether to believe you or not,” the girl said. “Will you tell me his name?”
“Positively,” said Tom. “His name is Harris—Walter Harris.”
“Oh, how proud he must be,” said the girl. “Just to think how he’ll live up there all alone with some poor—oh, I think it’s wonderful. And his summer will be consecrated to friendship. Do you know how I picture him? I picture him as tall, and—and—sort of slender and athletic. Not exactly dignified but—you know—kind of quiet and reserved. Like a—oh, you know what I mean—like a—kind of aloof and silent. That’s the word—aloof. I picture him as being different from other boys. Isolated.”
“Oh, he’s different,” said Tom.
CHAPTER V
CHAOS AND CONFUSION
It was ten months after the conversation just recorded and the momentous summer had come around, when our hero, so tall, slender, athletic and silent, sprawled on the parlor floor near the front hall and squirmed in heroic contortions in his endeavor to reach a can of spaghetti which he had supposed was under the Victrola cabinet.
“It isn’t there,” he said; “I had two cans; where’s the other one?”
“I don’t know, Walter,” the hero’s mother was tempted to observe as she sat watching his frantic maneuverings; “you’re a boy scout and claim to be so good at tracking and trailing, I should think you could trail a can of spaghetti.”
“Cans of spaghetti aren’t wild animals,” Pee-wee thundered. “That shows how much you know about scouting. Even you don’t know what a relay race is.”