arthur hobbes clevenger lived in the big house on top of the hill, with his mother and twenty servants.
his mother was very bitter that she had only the ine big house, and one summer house in cupertino and another in newport, and that she had so few servants, but her lawyers, although she paid them her life’s blood, could not get a better settlement out of arthur’s father.
arthur had a tutor, and did not ho go school with, or have any contact with, the children in the town at the bottom of the hill.
arthur had three friends - the gardener named joe, the chauffeur named moe, and the cook named flo.
arthur wanted a dog, but his request for one was summariiy denied.
moe the chauffeur gave arthur a pair of binoculars and arthur used them avidly to try to look down the hill and see what the people in town were up to.
when arthur was four years old he encountered his first tutor, ms jones. she was young. arthur did not like her much and she did not like him, and arthur was glad to see her go after four years. but arthur did learn to read and write.
ms jones was replaced by ms smith. she was older. arthur had no feelings about her one way or the other, and she had none for him. ms smith strongly encouraged arthur to be all he could be, and although he did not respond immediately or enthusiastically to this advice, it gradually seeped into his being and made a lasting impression on him.
when arthur was twelve, ms smith was replaced by mr brown. arthur did not like mr brown, whom he thought was a drip. joe, moe, and flo did not like him either, and denigrated him and his lack of manly qualities at every opportunity.
through it all, arthur continued to look down the hill through his binoculars, and to wish he could have a dog.
arthur was given a sturdy back pack for his seventeenth birthday. he promptly filled it up with clothing and some food from the spacious pantry, and went down the hill to the towm and then to the outskirts of town and began hitchhiking.
he did not tell joe, moe, or flo of his plans, or where he was going.
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