Page:The spirit of the leader (IA spiritofleader00heyl).pdf/16

 promise of his name. By all the pictures that names suggest he should have been tall, fair-haired, dashing and magnetic. Instead he was thin and dark and funereal of aspect, an ungainly boy running mostly to gangling shanks and given to unexpected, impish outbursts of mischief.

And yet, the two were friends, drawn together by their very contrasts. To George, slow of speech, Perry's wit and flippant tongue were qualities as baffling as they were sometimes alluring. To scrawny Perry, George's solid strength was something to be worshipped as personally unattainable. Perry referred to the football guard as "the Northfield ox." George called Perry "the human string-bean." They got along famously, as opposites sometimes do.

That summer carpenters and plasterers entered the high school, and did not leave until the week before school opened. Perry, who had gone off to a camp immediately after the June examinations, came back to find an added story on the school building.

"What's the idea?" he asked George Praska. "Town been growing while I've been away?"

George gave a slow smile. The thought of rapid growth for Northfield impressed him as a fine example of Perry's humor. "Home rooms," he said.