Chapter 11

When I got back from Devon, Finny and the boys were in the far fields having a snowball fight. I started to walk away because I didn't want to talk about Leper, but Finny hit me and came running over. Before I could answer him, the other boy moved the fight to us. Once we got back to the room Brinker said, "I'll bet he cracked up, didn't he?... Some morning they don't get out of bed with everybody else. They just lie there crying" (149). He had no idea how right he was. There was little left at Devon, there were V-12's, V-5's, and other military choices. One morning after chapel, Brinker held me aside and said, "Yes, pity him. And if you don't watch out he's going to start pitying himself" (152). Brinker had said the reason I wasn't enlisting was to stay back with Finny. The next day when I came back from chapel, I saw Finny making people who walked up the staircase sing "A Mighty Fortress is Our God". He loved and appreciated music so much. We went back to the room and I helped hit with Caesar, which he had to pass Latin to graduate. Finny then says that he saw Leper. "I saw Leper hiding in the shrubbery next to the chapel... He looked at me like I was a gorilla or something" (155). The war was finally real for Finny. At 10:05 p.m, Brinker and others came into our room and we slyly went into the Assembly room. Brinker said, "Let us pray", and we did. Brinker made Finny get up, and then do his investigation. Finny did not think someone was in the tree with him, so I went along. To get the facts, they got Leper, who told the story. Almost at the end, Leper said that he wasnt a fool, and stopped telling. Finny left the building saying, "I don’t care"(168). He left crying. We then heard his body clumsily fall down the stairs.