Harris and Me: A Summer Remembered

As Chapter 5 opens, Harris and the protagonist are in the barn. Knute soon follows and calls upon two massive horses named Bill and Bob to come into the barn for feeding time. The protagonist describes the horses as “two hair-covered dinosaurs.” Both Knute and the horses tolerate Harris’s energy and interference as the protagonist watches. When the horses finish eating, Knute leads them out of the barn. Harris climbs on a horse, and the protagonist t follows with hesitation. Harris insists that they have to hurry before Buzzer the cat sees them. He explains that Buzzer is an aggressive cat, and nobody can touch him except Louie. Harris describes the way Buzzer is fast and catches the mice before Harris has the chance to. Despite Harris’s wishes, Buzzer jumps on the back of the protagonist’s horse, who seems to be used to giving the cat a lift.

Harris reveals that Buzzer is joining so he can catch mice as they run away from the mower. Meanwhile, the protagonist is thinking he does not want to catch mice or ride the horse any longer, but he reluctantly continues to tag along. When they arrive at the field, the protagonist feels he has had enough of the suspense and asks why they are there to catch mice. Harris answers that Louie pays him a penny for every two mice.

The mower begins to cut the alfalfa field, and the protagonist is enthralled by the ease and perfection of the machinery and the skill and patience of Buzzer as he hunts the mice. Buzzer catches a mouse first, and then Harris. As the boys and the cat follow behind the mower, the protagonist finally catches his first mouse. Buzzer looks at him pleadingly, and the protagonist forfeits his mouse to the cat. By the time the affair is over, the protagonist shares two thirds of his catches with the cat and comes home with six mice for Louie.

The boys sit under a tree and wait for a second lunch as Harris describes how Buzzer acquired his name. He informs the protagonist that Buzzer stole food from a previous pet dog, who defended his nourishment by biting Buzzer in the leg. It was then that Buzzer killed the dog, and because it was “like the dog got hit by a buzz saw” (36), he earned the name Buzzer.

Throughout and after lunch, the protagonist observes the family as they engage in their natural social habits. He admires the gentle relationship between Glennis and her mother, and the soft calm of Knute. He realizes that Knute “always seem[s] about to say something but never quite [gets] it out” (37). The protagonist sees Clair feeding Buzzer and asks what kind of cat he is, and she replies that he is a lynx. The boys return to hunting mice, eat dinner, and as the protagonist is drifting off to sleep with the eventful day behind him but still swirling, he wonders what Louie could possibly want with the mice and passes off to sleep.

The protagonist and Harris develop a daily routine of waking up before dawn, watching Louie eat and hoping for a chance at some food, assisting with milking the cows while keeping an eye out for Ernie the rooster, and finding ways to entertain themselves that often result in trouble. The protagonist recalls some hijinks involving his collection of comic books that he brought along to the farm— specifically, a Tarzan of the Apes comic. Harris enjoys the comic and thinks about the benefits and logistics of living Tarzan’s lifestyle of staying above the ground. The protagonist notes what marvels him about Harris: “And herein lay the one shining ability of Harris—he believed everything was real… He thought in real terms, in a real world, in real time” (41).

Memories then shift back to a previous day, when the protagonist asks Harris what Louie does with the mice. Harris tells him that he makes little coats and leads him to the granary to show him. They climb up a ladder to an area with a table filled with various models and figurines that Louie had been building and sculpting. It is a grand winter scene of hundreds of logger men chopping, building, riding, and relaxing. Harris explains that Louie uses the mice’s fur to make coats for the figures, and that it is a fantasy world for Louie. The protagonist realizes that this is the one thing Harris seems to realize is not real. The protagonist admires Louie’s work and returns many times to look at it.

Suddenly, Harris gets a glint in his eye, and the protagonist knows he has a mischievous idea. Harris ponders what Tarzan would have done had he lived on a farm, and he goes to fetch a long, but old and worn-out rope. He suggests they tie it to various places and use it to navigate from the barn to the granary and the river without touching the ground. It is in this moment that the protagonist learns more about physics, as he references in the chapter title. Having not prepared for wind, the reliability of the rope, or even the possibility of Ernie attacking, when Harris finally swings from the rope and yells like Tarzan, many tiny elements combine with unfortunate results. Ernie jumps on the protagonist, who slips and knocks into Harris mid-swing. All three swing straight into the pig pen and a pile of dung. Seemingly unfazed, Harris jumps on a sow and begins riding it. The protagonist watches Harris, thinking he does resemble some form of Tarzan.