Everyone in Spruce Point, Maine, referred to the orphan, either with affection or exasperation, as "that Jud." But they all realized how much like them he really was. He was always getting into trouble playing hooky from school (who could stand being the only boy in a classroom of girls?), and some even said he was "light-fingered." But the old men who watched him from the pier smiled indulgently. They remembered when they were boys and needed a hideaway. They watched as Jud rowed to his "secret" island with Skipper, "a sort of terrier." They watched as he loaded and unloaded boards for his cabin and silently thought back to their own hopes and dreams. But Jud knew nothing of this and he was very lonely, feeling unwanted and neglected in spite of Captain Ben's concern for him. When there was a real emergency Jud rose to meet it -- and earned his own self-respect as well as the admiration of the townspeople.