Fifteen years after he had been a student at the all-boys Devon School in New Hampshire, Gene Forrester returns to visit two places in particular on the school's campus. The first is a marble staircase inside the First Academy Building. He reflects about how suddenly hard its steps seem. Each has the worn image of a moon carved into it. Moving outside where it is raining, he walks across the playing fields and his shoes become wet and soggy. He ignores the weather, intent on arriving at his second destination. Gene stops near the Devon River and looks for one tree in particular, although they all now seem to look alike. He spots it finally and marvels,
"This was the tree, and it seemed to me standing there to resemble those men, the giants of your childhood, whom you encounter years later and find that they are not merely smaller in relation to your growth, but that they are...shrunken by age....[for] the old giants have become pigmies while you were looking the other way." Chapter 1, pg. 6
Returning to what had been a fearful place in his school days at Devon, the tree is reduced to a thing pitied for its wretchedness. After his pilgrimage to these two sites, Gene turns back the way he came, thinking to himself that "Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence. Changed, I headed back through the mud. I was drenched; anybody could see it was time to come in out of the rain." Chapter 1, pg. 6 After revisiting these two fearful places he had known in his youth, Gene reaches some sort of peace within himself and finds release from a burden that has troubled him for many years. As if shaken awake, he suddenly notices the rain and is eager to get back indoors.
Time turns back fifteen years to when Gene was a schoolboy standing near that same tree with his friend Phineas, nicknamed Finny. There are three other boys with them and they debate about climbing it, for "The tree was tremendous, an irate, steely black steeple beside the river." Chapter 1, pg. 6 It appears to be very ominous and foreboding, although Finny pressures them all to climb with him, bragging that it looks easy. However, the other boys are hardly convinced. They are all a part of Devon School's first Summer Session, established in 1942 to accelerate students and prepare them for service in World War II. The tree, from which they would jump to simulate a dive from a sinking ship, is a training site of sorts for the senior students, also called Upper Middlers. Since the other boys are doubtful, Finny takes off his clothes, climbs the tree and gleefully jumps off one of its branches, landing in the river below. Gene unwillingly agrees to climb the tree next. As he prepares to jump he wondered "What was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me?" Chapter 1, pg. 9 After landing in the water, Gene receives Finny's compliments. Finny then urges the other three boys, Leper Lepellier, Chet Douglass, and Bobby Zane to go. All three are too afraid and Phineas is proud that only he and Gene were brave enough. It was this fact that makes them feel even closer as best friends.
The boys, led by Phineas, begin to walk briskly back across the playing fields toward the gym while Gene worries that they'll be late for dinner. Finny playfully trips his friend and the two begin to wrestle. The other three boys tell them to hurry up, which they do only after it is clearly too late to go to dinner. Despite his tendency to obey the school's rules, Gene allows Finny to distract him.
They pass the First Academy Building and the campus is suddenly alive with summer activity. Boys relax in the grass after dinner, lights are on in the classrooms, and music wanders through the air. Gene and Finny finally arrive back in the dormitory and begin studying Thomas Hardy, a man famous for writing poems about World War I. Later, as the bell chimes ten o'clock, time for bed, Gene changes into his pajamas while Finny simply goes nude, since he had heard that wearing pajamas was unmilitaristic. In the dark, Finny prays silently and then they both go to sleep.
