CHAPTER II.
THE STRANGE WHEELMAN.
LOREN and Ralph often declared that if Tom Bigden's "cheek" had not been "monumental," he never could have lived through the winter as he did. He went everywhere, and although, to quote from the Canvas Canoe, he did not "shoot off his chin" quite as much as he formerly did, or take as deep an interest in things, he did not by any means keep in the background, as most boys would have done under like circumstances. As time wore on, he and his cousins began telling one another that Prime did not confine himself to the truth when he said that every one in the village knew how intimate Tom and Matt Coyle had been during the two last summers, for certainly he was as well treated and as cordially received wherever he went as he ever was. Joe Waring and his friends always
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