two sentences:)

[Jenny Lau]

I can not understand the red words,thank u!!

1.Jake was never one to say much. You might never know that he was around for all the talking he did.
2. he wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, ''. . . tonight my kids will have a really . . .'' He tugged at the string.

[Tdol]

1 was around = was there; in other words, he was so quiet you might not notice him
2 Probably, he was playing with some string and pulled it. If it is meant figuratively, then we do talk about tugging the heartstrings, which is to make people feel emotional, though this seems less likely to me from what you have quoted.

[Jenny Lau]

thank you, tdol!