Leper Lepellier: quite an interesting character indeed! One minute searching for beaver dams, the next moving on to something totally unrelated. He most definitely did not go along with the crowd! He didn’t care that the rest of his class was off to clear snow from the railroad tracks - he had to find that beaver dam! He, in a way, was like Chet Douglas. He was fascinated by nature the way Chet was fascinated by history, math or whatever other subject he was studying. Leper marveled at slightest things any other person would have ignored. He didn’t care about "fitting in" with his peers or he just didn’t have time to care about fitting in with his peers. After all, there were beaver dams to find! He also was quite dependent. Even though he went off in his solitary "splendor" most every day, he grew to rely on things. Such as nature, perhaps. Maybe one of the reasons why he was so fascinated by nature could be that it was reliable (in a way). He knew that there would always be plants to observe, beaver dams to find, etc. He knew that the boys at Devon were not always very reliable, and certainly he didn’t want to take the risk of trying to be friends with them! That could mean being let down, and Leper wouldn’t be able to handle that. He couldn’t handle when the war let him down. After seeing the provocative slide on the ski troops, Leper was convinced that was the life for him. Certain he would find happiness there, he packed his bags and left. Unfortunately, the training for the troops was rigorous and Leper just didn’t have the strength, physically or emotionally, to pull through it. Another thing had let him down, which later on would only push him deeper into his reliance on nature.