Rufus.

"The best way, I've a notion," said Winthrop looking round at
his cattle, -- "is not to take too long noon-spells in the
afternoon."

"Stop a bit. Sit down! -- I want to speak to you. Do you want
to spend all your life following the oxen?"

Winthrop stopped certainly, but he waited in silence.

"_I_ don't!"

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know -- something --"

"What is the matter, Will?"

"Matter?" -- said the other, while his fine features shewed the
changing lights and shadows of a summer day, -- "why Winthrop,
that I am not willing to stay here and be a ploughman all my
life, when I might be something better!"

The other's heart beat. But after an instant, he answered
calmly,

"How can you be anything better, Will?"

"Do you think all the world lies under the shadow of Wut-a-
qut-o?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think all the world is like this little world which
those hills shut in?"

"No," -- said Winthrop, his eye going over to the blue depths
and golden ridge-tops, which it did not see; "-- but --"

"Where does that river lead to?"

"It leads to Mannahatta. What of that?"

"There is a world there, Winthrop, -- another sort of world, --
where people know something; where other things are to be done
than running plough furrows; where men may distinguish
themselves! -- where men may read and write; and do something
great; and grow to be something besides what nature made them!
-- I want to be in that world."

They both paused.

"But what will you do, Rufus, to get into that world? -- we are
shut in here."

"_I_ am not shut in!" said the elder brother; and brow and lip
and nostril said it over again; -- "I will live for something
greater than this!"

There was a deep-drawn breath from the boy at his side.

"So would I, if I could. But what can we do?"

How difficult it was to do anything, both felt. But after a
deliberate pause of some seconds, Rufus answered,

"There is only one thing to do. -- I shall go to College."

"To College! -- Will?"

The changes in the face of the younger boy were sudden and
startling. One moment the coronation of hope; the next moment
despair had thrown the coronet off; one more, and the hand of
determination, -- like Napoleon's, -- had placed it firmly on
his brow; and it was never shaken again. But he said nothing;
and both waited a little, till thoughts could find words.

"Rufus, -- do papa and mamma know about this?"

"Not yet."