Harris and Me Page 11

  Buzzer is all right although he seems cross sometimes and popped me once last week.

  I found some graves back down off the house from homesteaders and was thinking I’d dig them up and look for treasure but I’ll wait until you come back for that.

  Well, that’s all for now. Oh, Louie come in the other day and told me to mail you what’s in the package. He said you’d know what it was.

  Bye, you old gooner, and I hope you can come home soon.

  Harris

  I unwrapped a piece of paper in the box and found the small figure that had been me in Louie’s diorama. I held the mouse-furred little statue for a long time, rolling it in my fingers, then I put it on a windowsill where I could see it while I drifted to sleep that night and dreamed of horses and farms and corn and girls with blond hair and Tarzan and Gene and a bicycle that did a hundred miles an hour, carrying a freckled boy in bibs...

  About the Author

  GARY PAULSEN has written nearly two hundred books for young people, including the Newbery Honor Books Hatchet, Dogsong, and The Winter Room. He divides his time between a home in New Mexico and a boat on the Pacific Ocean.