Chapter 10 text

After reading that letter from Leper I immediately set out for his “Christmas location,” meaning his home in Vermont. I took a train and then a bus through the barren New England landscape and arrived in Leper’s town early the next morning. I walked the rest of the way through the snow to his house. All the while he refused to admit to himself that he had deserted the army; he tried to convince himself that by “escape,” Leper has meant an escape from spies. I had simply tried to explain to Leper that he deserted because the army was planning to give him a Section Eight discharge for insanity, which means it would've prevented him to never have to work or live a normal life. As I was talking to Leper he began to get upset and started breaking down and insulting me. "Like that time you crippled him for life" (137). He started talking about how Finny fell out of the tree and broke his leg, and in the end he blamed me and said that I shook the tree to make him lose his balance. After we were arguing back and forth his mother came into the room and was saying that Leper was ill and was wondering why I would ever attack an ill person. I had no idea what to think, I just knew that I came to help Leper and everything had gone wrong in a blink of an eye. As we kept talking about everything bad I could not take it anymore and I decided to leave and run home in the snow.