GRANDMOTHER: (incredulous) You mean, Silas, you're going to give the hill away?
SILAS: The hill at the end of our trail—how could we keep that?
GRANDMOTHER: Well, I want to know why not! Hill or level—land's land and not a thing you give away.
SILAS: Well, don't scold me. I'm not giving it away. It's giving itself away, get down to it.
GRANDMOTHER: Don't talk to me as if I was feeble-minded.
SILAS: I'm talking with all the mind I've got. If there's not mind in what I say, it's because I've got no mind. But I have got a mind, (to FEJEVARY, humorously) Haven't I? You ought to know. Seeing as you gave it to me.
FEJEVARY: Ah, no—I didn't give it to you.
SILAS: Well, you made me know 'twas there. You said things that woke things in me and I thought about them as I ploughed. And that made me know there had to be a college there—wake things in minds—so ploughing's more than ploughing. What do you say, Felix?
FELIX: It—it's a big idea, Uncle Silas. I love the way you put it. It's only that I'm wondering—
SILAS: Wondering how it can ever be a Harvard College? Well, it can't. And it needn't be (stubbornly) It's a college in the cornfields—where the Indian maize once grew. And it's for the boys of the cornfields—and the girls. There's few can go to Harvard College—but more can climb that hill, (turn of the head from the hill to FELIX) Harvard on a hill? (As FELIX smiles no, SILAS turns back to the hill) A college should be on a hill. They can see it then from far around. See it as they go out to the barn in the morning; see it when they're shutting up at night. 'Twill make a difference—even to them that never go.