Henry Huggins can't wait until he turns eleven years old so that he can have a paper route like his friend Scooter. All he has to do is prove to the route manager, Mr. Capper, that he's responsible enough to handle the job as well as anyone. Henry is convinced that he can do it. He combs his hair, rides his bike over to Mr. Capper's house and gives a practice speech to a telephone pole.

But when he arrives at Mr. Capper's house, nothing runs according to his plan. Henry stammers out his speech, a kitten he has hidden in his jacket escapes and Mr. Capper asks him to come back in a year or two when he is older.

      Still Henry could not give up. "I know I'm not very tall for my age, but I can ride a bike, and throw straight, and … things."
     "There's more to a paper route than riding a bicycle and throwing papers," said Mr. Capper. "A boy has to be able to handle money and see that the papers are delivered on time in every kind of weather and left on the porch, or in the mailbox, or wherever the subscribers want them delivered. There is more to a paper route than most people know about."

Henry's friend Scooter gives him a chance to be a paperboy before his eleventh birthday! Scooter wants to swim at the Y one day a week, so Henry gets to fold all his papers. And then, when Scooter comes down with the chicken pox, who do you think gets to take over his route for a couple of weeks?