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.