When his tongue smarted from too much smoking, he would chew gum for comfort And he read and read, until his eyes prickled and the print blurred.

But the next week he diffidently asked Ross if he thought he could get him a book on astronomy, explaining rather shame-facedly that there was something he wanted to look up.

On his third trip Hank carried several government pamphlets on forestry.

Which goes to prove how Jack was slowly adapting himself to his changed circumstances, and fitting himself into his surroundings.
He had to do that or go all warped and wrong, for he had no intention of leaving the peak, which was at once a refuge and a place where he could accumulate money; not much money, according to Jack's standard of reckoning--his mother had often spent as much for a gown or a ring as he could earn if he stayed all summer--but enough to help him out of the country if he saved it all.
When his first four days vacation was offered him, Jack thought a long while over the manner of spending it.

Quincy did not offer much in the way of diversion, though it did offer something in the way of risk.