The Hills of the Shatemuc.

Susan Warner.

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Rufus. We’ve got the farm in pretty good order now.

Winthrop. Yes, father has, if those stumps were once out. We ought to have good crops this year of most things.

R. I am sure I have spent four or five years of my life in hard work upon it.

W. Your life ain’t much the worse for it. Father has spent more than that. How hard he has worked—to make this farm!

R. It was a pretty tough subject to begin with; but now it’s the handsomest farm in the county. It ought to pay considerable after this.

W. It hasn’t brought us in much so far, Rufus, except just to keep along; and a pretty tight fit at that.

R. If the farm was clear, I’d stand the chance of its paying. It’s that keeps us down—the debt.

W. Debt! What debt?

R. The interest on the mortgage.

W. What is the debt?

R. Several thousands, I believe.

W. You and I must pay off that money, Rufus.

R. Ay; but still there’s the question, which is the best way to do it?

W. The best way, I’ve a notion, is not to take too long noon-spells in the afternoon.

R. Stop a bit. Sit down again; I want to speak to you. Do you want to spend all your life following the oxen?

W. What is the matter, Rufus?

R. Matter! Why, Winthrop, that I am not willing to stay here and be a ploughman all my life, when I might be something better.

W. How can you be anything better, Rufus?

R. Do you think all the world is like this little world which these hills shut in? There is another sort of world, Winthrop, where people know something; where other things are to be done than running plough furrows; where men may read and write—do something great—distinguish themselves. I want to be in that world.

W. But what will you do, Rufus, to get into that world? We are shut in here.

R. I am not shut in! I will live for something greater than this!

W. So would I, if I could; but what are we to do?

R. There is only one thing to do. I shall go to college.

W. But some preparation is necessary, Rufus; isn’t it? How will you get that? Father wants us this summer. We are just beginning to help him.

R. We can help him much better the other way. Farming is the most miserable slow way of making money that ever was contrived.

W. How do you propose to make money, Rufus?

R. I don’t know. I am not thinking about making money at present.

W. It takes a great deal to go to college, don’t it?

R. Yes. But I intend to go, Winthrop.

W. Yes, you’ll go.

R. I’ll try for it.

W. And you’ll get it, too, Rufus!