Jem was the child of the House of Dreams . All the others had been born at Ingleside . He had curly red hair , like his mother 's , and frank hazel eyes , like his father 's ; he had his mother 's fine nose and his father 's steady , humorous mouth . And he was the only one of the family who had ears nice enough to please Susan . But he had a standing feud with Susan because she would not give up calling him Little Jem . It was outrageous , thought thirteen-year-old Jem . Mother had more sense . `` I 'm NOT little any more , Mother , '' he had cried indignantly , on his eighth birthday . `` I 'm AWFUL big . '' Mother had sighed and laughed and sighed again ; and she never called him Little Jem again -- in his hearing at least . He was and always had been a sturdy , reliable little chap . He never broke a promise . He was not a great talker . His teachers did not think him brilliant , but he was a good , all-round student . He never took things on faith ; he always liked to investigate the truth of a statement for himself . Once Susan had told him that if he touched his tongue to a frosty latch all the skin would tear off it . Jem had promptly done it , `` just to see if it was so . '' He found it was `` so , '' at the cost of a very sore tongue for several days . But Jem did not grudge suffering in the interests of science . By constant experiment and observation he learned a great deal and his brothers and sisters thought his extensive knowledge of their little world quite wonderful .
Jem always knew where the first and ripest berries grew , where the first pale violets shyly wakened from their winter 's sleep , and how many blue eggs were XXXXX a given robin 's nest in the maple grove .
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