However, if Uncle Israel’s welcome seemed lacking in warmth, there was no fault to be found with Star’s, unless it was the fault of over-enthusiasm. Poor Star was having lonely times those days. John Green, himself a rather lonely, taciturn man, confided to Tom on his second visit home that it just made his heart ache to see how that there Star dog moped aroun’! Well, those end-of-the-week visits to the farm were pretty fine, and during the first month at least saved Tom from many a fit of discouragement and homesickness. After a month they became less imperative, for by that time he had made friends and, although he had but little time in which to cultivate them, the knowledge of them helped a good deal. He was rather surprised, in fact, to discover how many persons he knew in Amesville by the time October had reached its end. There was Joe Gillig, of course, who, in consideration of the disparity in the ages of the two boys, was quite chummy with Tom and had twice taken him to supper at the little cottage in Stuart’s Addition, where Joe lived with an invalid mother and an unmarried sister some five years his senior. They were very nice folks, Tom thought, and the only thing that marred the occasions of his visits was the overbearing and almost rude attitude of Joe toward the women. Tom, though, understood dimly that Joe really intended neither discourtesy nor unkindness; that having been the head of the little establishment for ten years or so was responsible for the rather harsh authority he assumed. And then, too, both Mrs. Gillig and Mary did their utmost to spoil Joe, accepting his dictates with meek admiration. And then there was Mrs. Cleary, his landlady, who mothered him in her good-hearted Irish way, and Dan, her husband, a big, raw-boned man with a voice like a fog-horn and a laugh like a young tornado. Frequently when Tom came home after supper he stopped downstairs and visited for a little while with the Clearys. The eldest son, who drove a delivery wagon for Miller and Tappen, was seldom there, but he made friends with the other children and listened to Dan Cleary’s stories of happenings in the railroad yard and roundhouse. It was a little bit like home, and when he went on upstairs to his own tiny room he felt less lonesome. Then, too, he made the acquaintance of two or three of the boarders at Mrs. Burns’s--rough, hard-working men with unlovely ways and kind hearts. It was about this time that Tom made a discovery that helped him a good deal in later years, which was that folks are very much alike under the skin whether they ride in carriages or drive spikes into railway ties.