As usual, school posed no great problem for Adam and the idea of writing public exams the following year did not daunt him. He remained aloof from those of his own age however, and  was often lonely. At times he felt a longing for something, but could not express what it was. Perhaps he was meant to be born somewhere else he sometimes thought, but than wondered why he would think such a thing. He loved his parents, although love was not a word used very much among them, he felt it though, and knew that was what mattered most.  More and more he engrossed himself in his books until sometimes the characters appeared more real than those who intermingled with him in real life. Realizing that this was something that might be difficult to discuss with his parents, he once again turned to Becky who quickly assured him that he was not mad, but encouraged him to finish high school and find his place in the bigger world that few in Little valley knew anything about.

Lawrence and Becky were hoping to move into their new house later that Fall, a house that had cost him less than one hundred dollars. Together with his father and brothers, he had cut the necessary logs at Pollock Cove and taken them to the saw mill in Petersview, where they were sawed on the halves, meaning that the sawmill owner took half the logs as payment.  When Lawrence began building his house, about a hundred feet from the one in which he had been born, neighbours quickly turned up to offer a hand.  Becky couldn’t believe how fast the house was going up and both her and Mary had mixed emotions about them moving out and into their new home. The relationship between the two had remained close and Mary thought of how she would miss the twin boys, who were now more than six months old.  Eli reminded the women one evening, when they were discussing the move, that they would be living just a hundred feet apart! Try as he might though, he could not convince them that their lives would not be changed forever. Lawrence had decided the previous Spring to build a small boat and try his hand at fishing single-handedly. The move had been a good one and at the end of the season, he’d made some three hundred dollars more than he would have earned working on the room. Both Becky and his mother were concerned about his fishing alone however, and were pleased when sixteen year old Allister Barnes, agreed to go shareman with him the following Spring.