“I beg your pardon,”––wearily. “You’re not to blame for thinking––as everybody else thinks.” His companion started to interrupt but Landers raised his hand in silencing motion. “Let us be honest––with ourselves, at least,” he anticipated.
“I know we of the farm are dull, and crude, and vulgar, and our thoughts are of common things. You of the other world patronize us; you practise on us as you did to-night, thinking we do not know. But some of us do, and it hurts.”
The other man impulsively held out his hand; a swift apology came to his lips, but as he looked into the face before him, he felt it would be better left unsaid. Instead, he voiced the question that came uppermost to his mind.
“Why don’t you leave––this––and go to school?” he asked abruptly. “You have an equal chance with the rest. We’re each what we make ourselves.”
Landers broke in on him quickly.
“We all like to talk of equality, but in 33 reality we know there is none. You say ‘leave’ without the slightest knowledge of what in my case it means.” He gave the collegian a quick look.
“I’m talking as though I’d known you all my life.” A question was in his voice.
“I’m listening,” said the man, simply.
“I’ll tell you what it means, then. It means that I divorce myself from everything of Now; that I unlive my past life; that I leave my companionship with dumb things––horses and cattle and birds––and I love them, for they are natural. This seems childish to you; but live with them for years, more than with human beings, and you will understand.
“More than all else it means that I must become as a stranger to my family; and they depend upon me. My friends of now would not be my friends when I returned; they would be as I am to you now––a thing to be patronized.”