Chapter 1

The tremendous irate tree that looked over the river was a beautiful thing. I thought the tree would be fun to climb, so I suggested it to Gene. He thought climbing it would be intimidating, however I didn’t see what the big deal it was I thought it should be fun. I liked having many friends around me so there was never a dull moment. I decided to not only climb it but jump off the branches right into the river. I wanted to be like the older kids that I heard like to do this too. I was excited to be the first one of our group to try this, and also that I had to be the role model to show them it would all be okay.  I told them that if I did it there was no reason to be afraid so they should just do it right after I had. Gene was the next to jump into the water, and I have to admit it looked good. Leper, Bobby, and Chet all chickened out and they wouldn’t do it. From that moment on I was best friends with Gene.  I decided to bring him to the place I call my “west point stride.”  The west point stride was intolerable; I thought that all evil against happiness was achieved by reaction. We realized that it was almost time for dinner so we needed to leave this field. We had a slight wrestling match that I lost, but I wasn’t upset and then we started to leave for home. After me and Gene had eaten dinner with all the other boys we headed back to our room. We were studying under the yellow lights, reading our Hardy assignments.  While we were studying we were listening to the news on our very low; because it was not allowed, radio to pass the time. Then after saying a few prayers we both went to sleep, along with all the other boys from Devon.

This is the large tree over the river that they like to jump off of.

“West Point stride” is where Finney likes to go and he brought Gene there once.

“What I like is that it’s such a cinch!”- page 6. This is how Finney describes how easy the tree will be to climb.

“Its soaring black trunk was set with rough wooden pegs leading up to a substantial limb which extended farther into the water.” - Page 7. This explains how the tree looks.