He had absolutely no luck. Girls avoided him like a polecat. He smiled, talked pretty, wrote love notes, even gave a present or two, but the girls, like fickle fish, would not bite. Of course he was not the only fellow left without a Sallie, but he was baffled. Why not him? Did he not look okay? Did he smell bad? Have bad breath? Were his clothes not up to par? He had even asked his Aunt Rachel in a concealed way: Is there anything the matter with me? To which she responded with so many accolades about his cuteness and his cleverness and his charm that he really believed only a quarter of what she said, but realized that a quarter of it was probably true.

Then one day he happened upon it, not the truth, but a reason of sorts. It came from Emma Dobson, who, though not a perfect angel, fit all the criteria for a girl friend, pretty enough, charming enough. He had become so anxious at that point that she took to running whenever he came near, confessing to him that day when he cornered her behind the cafeteria that he was just plain “weird.”

And when he asked what “weird” was supposed to mean, she replied: “Well . . . I don’t know. All you do is read books and stuff. You don’t play ball like the other guys. You’re just kind of . . . I don’t know . . . kind of like Gideon—I mean, you ain’t a sissy or nothing—and you’re kind of cute, really, but, but . . . shoot, Horace. I just can’t be your girl friend! I don’t want a boyfriend everybody calls weird! Now let me go!”

It was true, he had reflected. He wasn’t like the other guys. He wasn’t all that interested in playing touch football and soccer and baseball and basketball. It all just bored him. He wasn’t a fat child, nor was he lean and muscled like John Anthony who played everything, and was always captain, always the high scorer, always hailed and cheered by the girls—a twinge of envy would touch Horace lightly. Yet John Anthony was his buddy, but Gideon . . . to have been compared to Gideon was the insult of insults.

Gideon Stone was without a doubt the prettiest boy in Horace’s class. And everyone used that term for him. Pretty. Gideon had, as the old men say, sugar in his blood. But unlike decent folk, he was not reticent about it; in fact he paraded it about. He cultivated a dainty, feminine air, delicate and girllike. His hands formed flowery gestures in midair, and he had something of a mincing walk. People snickered. And though Horace disdained Gideon’s “ways,” as everyone called them, the true reason Horace despised Gideon was because Gideon was known as the smartest in the class.