he tossed her apron over her head and rocked
violently to an accompaniment of muffled sobs.

It was clear to me that Rufus Blight was not only neglectful of our
claims, but had been so with purpose, and as I wandered aimlessly
through the fields in the wake of James, and as in the evening I sat
again with him on the barn-bridge, looking over the darkening valley,
there held one enduring thought in the chaos of my brain. Looking back
now, I see in my childish enmity toward Rufus Blight the impulse that
set me on my course. But for that I might have stayed in the valley,
dozing, as the Professor had said, like the very dogs. In Rufus Blight
I was conscious of an opposing force. He had taken Penelope from me;
he had cheated me with flattery and broken promises; and the dominating
sense in my mind was one of conflict with him. I looked to the west.
Mountains rose there, range beyond range, and beyond them, miles away,
was his bustling, pushing town. To cross them and to close with him
was my one desire, and though time dulled the edges of my purpose and
the figures of the Professor, of Penelope and of Rufus Blight grew dim
in the distance, and at last the old motive was lost beneath a host of
new impelling forces, still it was Mallencroft's letter that touched
the quick and aroused me from my canine slumber.

The Professor's words came back to me. The mountains seemed to echo
them always. "Wake up, Davy! Do something; be somebody; get out of
the valley." Here was my shibboleth. I must do something; I must be
somebody; I must get out of the valley! And then I should go to
Penelope Blight, and a hundred urbane, unctuous uncles could not
defraud me of my right in her.

In my father I found the first mountain on the way that I had chosen,
for to his mind my destiny was settled and to be envied. All that was
his would some day be mine--the best farm in the county, his
Pennsylvania Railroad stock, his shares in the bridge company, and his
Kansas bonds. The dear soul had arranged my course so comfortably and
in such detail that in me he would have been living his own life over
again. And what my father said, my mother echoed. Was I too proud to
follow in his footsteps? Was I, a child in years, to hold myself above
the ways of my forebears?

Such arguments came too late to my rebellious spirit. I should no
longer have told the Professor that I was going to be like my father.
Necessity had made me more ambitiou