50They laughed at him a little, and he squirmed and looked guiltier than ever. He had a veryweak foothold among the Butt Room crowd, and I had pretty well pushed him off it. His glanceflickered out at me from his defeat, and I saw to my surprise that I had, by making a little funof him, brought upon myself his unmixed hatred. For my escape this was a price I was willingto pay."French, French," I exclaimed. "Enough of this contretemps. I've got to study my French."And I went out.Going up the stairs I heard a voice from the Butt Room say, "Funny, he came all the waydown here and didn't even have a smoke."But this was a clue they soon seemed to forget. I detected no Sherlock Holmes among them,nor even a Dr. Watson. No one showed any interest in tracking me, no one pried, no oneinsinuated. The daily lists of appointments lengthened with the rays of the receding autumn sununtil the summer, the opening day, even yesterday became by the middle of October somethinggotten out of the way and forgotten, because tomorrow bristled with so much to do.In addition to classes and sports and clubs, there was the war. Brinker Hadley couldcompose his Shortest War Poem Ever WrittenThe WarIs a boreif he wanted to, but all of us had to take stronger action than that. First there was the localapple crop, threatening to rot because the harvesters had all gone into the army or warfactories. We spent several shining days picking them and were paid in cash for it. Brinker wasinspired to write his Apple OdeOur choreIs the coreof the warand the novelty and money of these days excited us. Life at Devon was revealed as still veryclose to the ways of peace; the war was at worst only a bore, as Brinker said, no more taxing tous than a day spent at harvesting in an apple orchard.
51Not long afterward, early even for New Hampshire, snow came. It came theatrically, lateone afternoon; I looked up from my desk and saw that suddenly there were big flakes twirlingdown into the quadrangle, settling on the carefully pruned shrubbery bordering the crosswalks,the three elms still holding many of their leaves, the still-green lawns. They gathered therethicker by the minute, like noiseless invaders conquering because they took possession sogently. I watched them whirl past my window—don't take this seriously, the playful way theyfell seemed to imply, this little show, this harmless trick.It seemed to be true. The school was thinly blanketed that night, but the next morning, abright, almost balmy day, every flake disappeared. The following weekend, however, it snowedagain, then two days later much harder, and by the end of that week the ground had beenclamped under snow for the winter.In the same way the war, beginning almost humorously with announcements about maidsand days spent at apple-picking, commenced its invasion of the school. The early snow wascommandeered as its advance guard.Leper Lepellier didn't suspect this. It was not in fact evident to anyone at first. But Leperstands out for me as the person who was most often and most emphatically taken by surprise,by this and every other shift in our life at Devon.The heavy snow paralyzed the railroad yards of one of the large towns south of us on theBoston and Maine line. At chapel the day following the heaviest snowfall, two hundredvolunteers were solicited to spend the day shoveling them out, as part of the EmergencyUsefulness policy adopted by the faculty that fall. Again we would be paid. So we allvolunteered, Brinker and I and Chet Douglass and even I noticed, Quackenbush.But not Leper. He generally made little sketches of birds and trees in the back of hisnotebook during chapel, so that he had probably not heard the announcement. The train to takeus south to the work did not arrive until after lunch, and on my way to the station, taking ashort cut through a meadow not far from the river, I met Leper. I had hardly seen him all fall,and I hardly recognized him now. He was standing motionless on the top of a small ridge, andhe seemed from a distance to be a scarecrow left over from the growing season. As I ploddedtoward him through the snow I began to differentiate items of clothing—a dull green deerstalker'scap, brown ear muffs, a thick gray woolen scarf—then at last I recognified the face inthe midst of them, Leper's, pinched and pink, his eyes peering curiously toward some distantwoods through steel-rimmed glasses. As I got nearer I noticed that below his long tan canvascoat with sagging pockets, below the red and black plaid woolen knickers and green puttees, hewas wearing skis. They were very long, wooden and battered, and had two decorative, oldfashionedknobs on their tips."You think there's a path through those woods?" he asked in his mild tentative voice when Igot near. Leper did not switch easily from one train of thought to another, and even though Iwas an old friend whom he had not talked to in months I didn't mind his taking me for grantednow, even at this improbable meeting in a wide, empty field of snow.
- Page 1 and 2: 1John KnowlesA Separate Peace
- Page 4 and 5: 4Devon was both scholarly and very
- Page 6 and 7: 6sprang out, fell through the tops
- Page 8 and 9: 8a kitchen rattle from the wing of
- Page 10 and 11: 10true and sincere; Finny always sa
- Page 12 and 13: 12Withers, perched nervously behind
- Page 14 and 15: 14of the great northern forests. I
- Page 16 and 17: 163Yes, he had practically saved my
- Page 18 and 19: 18Up the field the others at badmin
- Page 20 and 21: 20that Finny could shine at it. He
- Page 22 and 23: 22"You can try it again and break i
- Page 24 and 25: 24tonks and shooting galleries and
- Page 26 and 27: 26But Finny gave me little time to
- Page 28 and 29: 28was weakened by the very genuinen
- Page 30 and 31: 30"Don't go." He said it very simpl
- Page 32 and 33: 325None of us was allowed near the
- Page 34 and 35: 34The door was slightly ajar, and I
- Page 36 and 37: 36We found it fairly easily, on a s
- Page 38 and 39: 38"Sure, I'll be there by Thanksgiv
- Page 40 and 41: 40Still it had come to an end, in t
- Page 42 and 43: 42"How many?""Who knows? Get some.
- Page 44 and 45: 44The houses on either side were in
- Page 46 and 47: 46"No, I wouldn't.""And I spent my
- Page 48 and 49: 48"What?" I pulled quickly around i
- Page 52 and 53: 52"I'm not sure, Leper, but I think
- Page 54 and 55: 54After they had gone we laborers l
- Page 56 and 57: 56To enlist. To slam the door impul
- Page 58 and 59: 588"I can see I never should have l
- Page 60 and 61: 60"So," Brinker curled his lip at m
- Page 62 and 63: 62So the war swept over like a wave
- Page 64 and 65: 64We went into the gym, along a mar
- Page 66 and 67: 66you at the Funny Farm.""In a way,
- Page 68 and 69: 68large rambling, doubtfully Coloni
- Page 70 and 71: 709This was my first but not my las
- Page 72 and 73: 72Giraud but Lepellier; we knew, be
- Page 74 and 75: 74"Who wants a Winter Carnival?" he
- Page 76 and 77: 76Still the sleek brown head bent m
- Page 78 and 79: 78ELWIN LEPER LEPELLIER.
- Page 80 and 81: 80escapes from is danger, death, th
- Page 82 and 83: 82"That's what you say. But that's
- Page 84 and 85: 84a good boy underneath," she must
- Page 86 and 87: 86the Mess Hall, I had to eat every
- Page 88 and 89: 88"How's Leper?" he asked in an off
- Page 90 and 91: 90I didn't say anything."He must be
- Page 92 and 93: 92never will.""You're so wrong I ca
- Page 94 and 95: 94I believed you," he added hurried
- Page 96 and 97: 96acoustics in the school. I couldn
- Page 98 and 99: 98the tree did it by itself. It's a
- Page 100 and 101:
100"Here! Go get him," said Brinker
- Page 102 and 103:
102"I can't think of the name of th
- Page 104 and 105:
104Dr. Stanpole stopped near the do
- Page 106 and 107:
106hurt my stomach and I could feel
- Page 108 and 109:
108and "psycho" and "sulfa," strang
- Page 110 and 111:
110His face had been struggling to
- Page 112 and 113:
11213The quadrangle surrounding the
- Page 114 and 115:
114Brinker slid his fingers into th
- Page 116 and 117:
116At the gym a platoon was undress
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