So here was the odd situation of a boy living in the home of his childhood in the care of two people who were in no way related to him. It was characteristic of Hervey to get into odd situations and predicaments, and perhaps this position which he occupied in his own home in a fashion symbolized the position which he occupied in scouting and among boys generally. It was a position hard to duplicate, just as all of his stunts and resultant predicaments would have been hard to duplicate. He stood alone, or hung by his feet alone, or stood on his head. He was different, and everything about him was different. Of course, he did not regard having two step-parents as a stunt. But, you see, even in this he went a little further than most boys. He could handle two step-parents as easily as one, and he went upon his way rejoicing. No sentimental pity for Hervey is justified by this step-parent condition in his colorful career. The worst that can be said of Mr. and Mrs. Walton is that they did not understand him. But then no one understood him. He, on his part, accepted them as he accepted everything. He had nothing against them; he had nothing against anybody. Scout rules, wandering pedlers, railroad conductors, scoutmasters, school principals, tramps, carnival actors, step-parents, were all the same to Hervey. He leaned a little toward carnival actors. I have sometimes wondered whether he ever had any wistful thoughts of his own mother so lately gone from him. And what his story might have been if she had been spared. If he was capable of deep sentiment we shall have to find that in this narrative. He was certainly blithesome and content at this point of taking up the trail of his aimless and adventurous progress. Like the miller of Dee in the nursery rhyme, “he cared for nobody, no not he.” _But he was incapable of malice._ Perhaps that was the keynote of his nature. And it was not a bad keynote. It was to this home, a pretty little house in Farrelton in the Berkshires, that Hervey returned after his summer at Temple Camp. And he overlooked the trifling matter of reporting that he had been dismissed and forbidden ever to return to those scenes of his roving freedom. Hervey was akin to those boys who point a suggestive finger in the direction an automobile is going in the hope of getting a lift. But his method was far better than that of most boys. It had an original quality all his own which motorists found it hard to resist. He would saunter diagonally across the road with a nonchalant air of preoccupation the while tossing a ball into the air. This he would dextrously cause to drop into the car which he had designs on. His preoccupied manner of crossing usually had the effect of slowing up the car. The truant ball gave him the opportunity to request its return. For the rest he depended on his personality to get a ride. He figured that if he could bring a passing auto to a halt the rest would be easy, as it usually proved to be.