They were back just where they were before Miss Trevor came -- back in their perfect , unmarred , sufficient comradeship . `` I must just run around and see Nora first , '' said Paul . Abel and His Great Adventure `` Come out of doors , master -- come out of doors . I ca n't talk or think right with walls around me -- never could . Let 's go out to the garden . '' These were almost the first words I ever heard Abel Armstrong say . He was a member of the board of school trustees in Stillwater , and I had not met him before this late May evening , when I had gone down to confer with him upon some small matter of business . For I was `` the new schoolmaster '' in Stillwater , having taken the school for the summer term . It was a rather lonely country district -- a fact of which I was glad , for life had been going somewhat awry with me and my heart was sore and rebellious over many things that have nothing to do with this narration . Stillwater offered time and opportunity for healing and counsel . Yet , looking back , I doubt if I should have found either had it not been for Abel and his beloved garden . Abel Armstrong -LRB- he was always called `` Old Abel '' , though he was barely sixty -RRB- lived in a quaint , gray house close by the harbour shore . I heard a good deal about him before I saw him . He was called `` queer '' , but Stillwater folks seemed to be very fond of him . He and his sister , Tamzine , lived together ; she , so my garrulous landlady informed me , had not been sound of mind at times for many years ; but she was all right now , only odd and quiet . Abel had gone to college for a year when he was young , but had given it up when Tamzine `` went crazy '' . There was no one else to look after her . Abel had settled down to it with apparent content : at least he had never complained . `` Always took things easy , Abel did , '' said Mrs. Campbell . `` Never seemed to worry over disappointments and trials as most folks do .
Seems to me that as long as Abel Armstrong can stride up and down in that garden XXXXX his , reciting poetry and speeches , or talking to that yaller cat of his as if it was a human , he does n't care much how the world wags on .
For about at before by in of though to with