Harris and Me: A Summer Remembered

“They lived on a farm forty miles north of the town I lived in, yet it might as well have been on a different planet. The ride took about an hour and a half, but it went through such varied terrain that before we had gone five miles I was in despair. For two or three of those miles the car moved past farm country that still seemed rather settled. Frequently there were tractors working in the fields and people who waved cheerfully, walking down the sides of the road. But soon the trees closed in, closer and thicker until they were a wall on either side and the road and car were enveloped in a curtain of green darkness. And there were no more open fields or driveways, just dirt tracks that disappeared into the forest and brush. It was like going off the edge of the earth on those old maps used by early explorers, into places where it said: There Be Monsters Here.” 

Paulsen describes scenes in the novel with detail and vivid visual imagery. As the protagonist is approaching the Larson’s farm for the first time, he observes the ever-thickening forest around him. This luscious language is consistent throughout the work, as the protagonist seems to have a very visual memory, and much of the scenery he paints for the reader is reflective of this. Recalling memories in this fashion brings the reader right into the moment, making it more real and personal. The protagonist’s description concerning monsters suggests his apprehension at leaving the more populated town and entering the isolated country. 

“Physically he was of a set piece with Glennis. Blond—hair bleached white by sun—face perpetually sunburned and red with a peeling nose, freckles sprinkled like brown pepper over everything, and even, white teeth, except that when Harris smiled there were two gone from the front. He was wearing a set of patched bib overalls. No shirt, no shoes—just freckles and the bibs, which were so large he seemed to move inside them. ‘Hi.’ He walked beside me, his hands still to his rear. I would subsequently find that this posture could be dangerous, meant he was hiding something, but I didn’t know that this soon, so I nodded. ‘Hi.’ ‘We heard your folks was puke drunks, is that right?’” 

This is the first time the protagonist meets Harris, and from this short interaction, Paulsen reveals much of Harris’s character. Harris being free within his bibs signifies his free spirit and the impossibility of taming him. His sunburnt face indicates his love and commitment to the outdoors, a place he is found from before dawn until the end of the day. When Harris first speaks to the protagonist, he is brash and honest, filled with curiosity and vigor. Harris walks with his hands behind his back, which the protagonist in hindsight knows is a sign of mischief. Looking back, all clues about Harris can be gleaned from this initial interaction. 

“The whole stack went to Louie’s plate. Seven or eight of them dropped into the puddle of syrup, hesitated while he poured gobs more syrup on top of them, and then disappeared. Apart from some species of sharks in a feeding frenzy, I have never seen anything eat like Louie. The pancakes were consumed whole. He deftly forked them in the middle, twisted them a half turn, and then speared them back into his toothless mouth letting his lips squeegee off the excess syrup, which then ran down into his beard, some of it to drip back onto his plate. In some wonderful manner he would then open his throat and swallow—all without chewing and only half choking.” 

Food is a consistent motif throughout the novel. The pancake breakfast is the protagonist’s first true experience with food and family on the farm. The way Paulsen describes Louie’s eating habits is a stylistic choice to create a vivid image in the reader’s mind; Louie’s inhalation of the pancakes is outlandish and exaggerated, adding to the novel’s comedic tone. 

“‘That’s just it, Harris—he doesn’t know. He’s from the city.’ I could recognize voices now, though I hadn’t opened my eyes. It was Clair. ‘He doesn’t know anything about farms, the poor dear. And what a way to start, getting kicked by Vivian.’”

Many of the protagonist’s experiences on the farm revolve around animals. His first direct experience with them is Vivian the cow, who kicks him in the head. This interaction between Clair and Harris following the incident is indicative of Harris’s thoughtlessness and the protagonist’s naivety. Even though Harris is younger than the protagonist, he acts as the leader for the summer, pushing, pulling, and encouraging him. Later in the summer, the pair will have more equal footing.

“Harris waited until the handle was turning easily and then left, disappeared completely, and inside ten minutes I smelled the rat. They milked seventeen cows by hand, the four of them—Clair, Glennis, Knute, and Louie—and every drop of milk from all those cows went through the separator.

Which I kept cranking.” 

Harris is adept at farm living and tends to seek out trouble. The protagonist is a city boy and not used to working hard on a farm, and separating the milk is his first taste of hard manual labor. Harris is tricky and leaves the protagonist to accomplish the grueling task alone. It is here that the protagonist learns of Harris’s manipulative nature, though this does not dissuade him from developing their friendship.

“‘Man’—Harris shook his head—‘you don’t know nothing, do you?’”

In the initial weeks of the summer, Harris marvels at the protagonist’s lack of farm knowledge. Harris acts as a teacher, exposing the protagonist to countless experiences, ideas, and knowledge that he had not previously known. The protagonist willfully follows his lead and is already learning that a day with Harris means a day of adventure. 

“‘Good food,’ Knute said to Clair and Glennis by way of a compliment. He seemed about to say more but stopped and watched a hawk swoop low over the new-cut grass and I realized that Knute was always like that; always seemed about to say something but never quite got it out.” 

Knute is Harris’s father. Harris looks up to Knute and is always happy to hear him talk or interact with him. The protagonist observes this and develops a similar admiration for Knute. His stern silence is depicted as a sign of strength and pride. The protagonist shows his intuitive nature here as well, as he notices patterns of behavior in those around him.

“‘What kind of cat is he?’ I asked. Knute smiled but said nothing. ‘We found a picture in a magazine looks just like him,’ Harris said. ‘What was that, Ma? What kind of cat was it?’ ‘He’s a lynx,’ Clair said. ‘A big old puppy baby lynx . . .’ Her voice got soft and you could see she wanted to pet Buzzer but she didn’t touch him, and when she didn’t feed him more, he walked away and began hunting the edge of the field looking for more mice.”

The Larsons are a family of misfits. Knute is silent, Louie is dirty and odd, Glennis is coltish, and Harris is a troublemaker. Despite these differences and oddities, the family accepts one another as they are, no questions asked. The way the Larsons accept Buzzer the lynx as part of their family despite his aggression and slightly unpredictable nature speaks to how accepting the family truly is. Whoever finds their way to the Larson farm belongs there.

“A daily routine evolved in the first week that was to carry me through my entire summer with Harris and the Larsons: up while it was still thick dark, watch Louie feed and try to compete and get a little food, out to help with milking—searching carefully for Ernie on the way—eat again when milking was done, and then get in trouble. It wasn’t that we tried to get in trouble. Indeed, Harris and I did not think in terms of trouble at all. It’s just that many of the things we wanted to do—well, perhaps all the things we wanted to do—seemed to cause difficulties in some way that we had not expected.” 

Farm life involves routine, consistency, and hard work. These are all lessons the protagonist learns during his time on the Larsons’s farm. With Harris in the picture, however, this routine is always broken with some trouble. The innocence and curiosity of youth leads the boys into mischief every day, despite their intentions. The difficulties the protagonist speaks of are the experiences and lessons to which each chapter title refers. Harris again acts as the teacher without knowing it.

“And herein lay the one shining ability of Harris—he believed everything was real. When he went for the pigs they weren’t pigs, they really were commie japs, whatever that was in his mind.” 

Harris has a bold imagination. To him, the movies he sees and the stories he reads are as real as anything else. The games he plays in which he invents worlds and characters are equally real. Harris has a way of affecting the world around him directly and powerfully, and the protagonist admires this in him.

“It was the only thing Harris didn’t think of as real and I was fascinated by Louie’s dream world. I had gone up there several times since and looked at the table and still hadn’t seen everything…”

Louie retains his status as a mysterious figure, but when the protagonist finds his table of miniatures, he is privileged with a glimpse into who Louie really is. The protagonist is so enthralled with Louie’s creations that he returns there regularly, and this moment foreshadows when the protagonist finds himself among the figures.

“Rules. Every time you turn around there’s something you can’t have or something you can’t do.”

During this scene, Harris steals a butcher knife from the kitchen and later explains it will be used to sharpen arrows for their game. Harris does not abide by any rules and finds ways around them. The protagonist realizes for the first time that Harris is capable of true danger, rather than mere mischief.

“I’m not sure how long I slept. When I opened my eyes Knute was carrying me in one arm and Harris in the other. He put us gently in the back of the truck.” 

Several chapters of the novel close on the protagonist falling asleep, exhausted from the day’s many events. This chapter’s end is different in that it signifies a moment of belonging for the protagonist. Never having belonged anywhere before, this is a major change for him. He is cared for as one of Knute’s own children and is starting to become part of the Larson family.

“I was scared—any time Harris started talking about shooting and horses it would be impossible not to be scared. Which of course meant I had to do it, whatever it was he wanted to do.” 

Approximately two-thirds through the novel, the protagonist is showing growth in his character. When he first arrives on the farm, he is timid and shy. However, as he spends his days with Harris facing real dangers and undertaking grand adventures, he begins to think differently. Now, the protagonist is determined to conquer his fears and takes feeling scared as a sign that he must face it.

“Knute never said a word, just looked at me and then went out to glue and wire the stock together. But that look made me wish I’d never lied about anything in my whole life.” 

When the protagonist lies about the most recent incident, taking the blame for Harris, everyone is fooled except Knute. What becomes clear is that Knute’s silence allows him to observe at a level that most cannot, and he sees straight through the protagonist’s lie. He says nothing, but the look of disappointment on his face says enough. In this moment, the protagonist learns what it is like to feel guilty about disappointing his family.

“But a goodly portion of our time was given over to work and it was during work that Knute broke his hand and I saw how Glennis really felt about Harris.” 

The author uses foreshadowing in the novel to build suspense and create emotional tension. Each experience the protagonist goes through teaches him a lesson. Much of what he learns is through playing with Harris, and learning what humans are and are not capable of, and about physics, and about friendship. The protagonist also learns through the work he does and observes others doing. This foreshadowing is referring to the scene of the highest tension, and what could be considered the climax of the novel.

“I lay back and watched the clouds for a moment and wondered how it could be that I was living here now and had been living somewhere else before, and why I didn’t seem to remember so much of the other place I had lived…” 

Once again incorporating visual imagery, this time creating a relaxed and dreamlike scene, the protagonist reflects on his feelings. He realizes that he is beginning to forget the life he had before and wonders why. The protagonist will later realize that he felt this way because he is finally home. On the Larson’s farm, he is accepted, and he is one of the family. The negative memories of his neglectful parents and moving from house to house seems like another life now.

“But it was Glennis who surprised me. She stood looking down at Harris for a moment, her hand halfway to her mouth, then she fell forward onto her knees across from Clair and held Harris’s head and made quiet crying sounds and spoke to him. ‘You come back, Harris. You come back now. We don’t want you gone. You come right back and I’ll never whup you again so help me God . . .’ Whether it was Clair rubbing his chest or Glennis holding him or just that he couldn’t be killed—which I thought—Harris’s legs moved and he raised his arms and his eyes opened and he looked up at Glennis.

‘What the hell happened?’” 

At the climax of the novel, a bull tramples Harris. He is badly injured, and everyone thinks he is dead. To defend the family, Knute punches the bull and breaks his hand. The protagonist is surprised by Glennis’s genuine concern, as he is used to seeing her hitting and disciplining Harris. He has not yet realized that she disciplines him out of love. When Harris wakes, true to form, he swears and bluntly asks what happened. The bond that the Larson family shares shines through strongest during this moment.

“‘If you don’t help tomorrow, I’m going to kill you.’ I was surprised to find that I meant it. Completely.” 

After two days of working twice as hard on behalf of an injured Harris, the protagonist has had enough. He knows Harris well at this point and is no longer fooled by his manipulations as easily. When Harris attempts to earn himself an entire week off, the protagonist puts his foot down. This is the first time in the novel that the protagonist shows an authority over Harris; he is maturing and becoming comfortable with himself.

“It was that sudden. I had seen movies where they talked about love at first sight, movies my mother made me sit through, and I was certain that’s what was happening here.” 

One summer can feel like a lifetime for an eleven-year-old. The protagonist’s experiences with Harris and the Larsons have made him mature, and he experiences love for the first time in his life. In this moment, the protagonist is no longer just a child, but is well on his way to manhood, developing the theme “Growing Up.”

“The shyness had gotten worse, and I was now in the position of having to convince Elaine that I was indeed ‘right in the head’ and did not eat my snot, without being able to speak but it was too late. Elaine was studying me with a new look, one of pity, and she smiled—not unkindly—and nodded and left me sitting there with Harris, fuming. ‘I’ll get you for this,’ I told him.” 

Harris sees the protagonist taking an interest in a girl and does what he can to interfere and prevent it from going further. By now he also knows the protagonist well and knows he is shy and struggling. That the protagonist follows through and avenges himself reveals his growth from a follower to Harris’s equal. 

“It was then that I realized the complexity of Harris’s plans. He didn’t just do things as they came along, willy-nilly—often he schemed for days, worked on them […] And even when the results didn’t warrant the effort […] he was optimistic about the outcome.” 

The protagonist spends most of the summer viewing Harris as a young boy who acts on impulse. It is now that he realizes that Harris possesses a type of intelligence and precision for planning and detail. The protagonist admires this about Harris, as well as Harris’s ability to always see the positive side of things and never let the world beat him down.

“There was a figure for me. A strange feeling came over me, seeing the figure. I somehow had never belonged—always felt like a visitor. And though we were related I never thought of myself as part of the family in some way; I considered myself more an observer than an outsider, a friend who watches. the figure made my role different, carved it in time. I wasn’t just a visiting second cousin. I was somebody, a part of this place, this family. I belonged.

I picked up the figure that represented me and looked more closely at it. It was wearing a mouse-hair coat and had a smile and white teeth inside the little smile. It couldn’t have looked less like me, but at the same time made me think more of myself, my life, than anything ever had before and I was crying when I set it down, crying to myself thinking that I felt like I was home.”

Until this moment, the protagonist spent his entire life feeling alone, unaccepted, and unloved. This scene is central to the key themes of the novel: family, belonging, and acceptance. The protagonist is overcome with emotion as not only does he feel like he is home, but he realizes that the rest of the family views him the same way. For the first time in his life, he is part of a reciprocal, loving family.