Then Jerome's lank outlines would begin to take on curves and the hungry look would disappear from his face.

He was a handsome boy, with a fearless outlook of black eyes from his lean, delicate face, and a thick curling crop of fair hair which the sun had bleached like straw.

Always protected from the weather, Jerome's hair would have been brown; but his hats failed him like his shoes, and often in the summer season were crownless.

However, his mother mended them as long as she was able.

She was a thrifty woman, although she was a semi-invalid, and sat all day long in a high-backed rocking-chair.
She was not young either; she had been old when she married and her children were born, but there was a strange element of toughness in her--a fibre either of body or spirit that kept her in being, like the fibre of an old tree.
Before Jerome entered the house his mother's voice saluted him.
"Where have you been, Jerome Edwards ?" she demanded.