Pencey’s fraudulence extends even to the menu at the dining hall. The main course on Saturday evenings is always steak. Holden suspects that the motive is to impress parents who visit on Sunday and ask their sons what they had to eat for dinner the night before.
At best, life around Agerstown is boring. Holden has no date so he takes a bus into town with Ackley and Mal Brossard, where they play pinball and eat hamburgers. They are back at the dorm by 8:45 p.m.
Allie’s left-handed fielder’s mitt (not a catcher’s mitt, so different from Holden, who wears his hat like a catcher does — backwards) is one of the dominating symbols of the novel. It is significant because it reveals the character of Holden’s cherished younger brother. Allie wrote poems, in green ink, all over the glove so that he would have something to read when he was in the field and bored. Holden tells us that Allie was extremely intelligent and the nicest member of his family. He had the kind of red hair, Holden says, that somehow told him when Allie was near, even when he couldn’t see him. The night Allie died, Holden slept in the garage and broke his hand while punching out the garage windows.
