"What will they think of it?"

"I don't know -- they _must_ think of it as I do. My mind is made
up. I can't stay here."

"But some preparation is necessary, Rufus, ain't it? -- we must
know more than we do before we can go to College, mustn't we?
How will you get that?"

"I don't know, I will get it. Preparation! -- yes!"

"Father will want us both at home this summer."

"Yes -- this summer -- I suppose we must. We must do something --
we must talk to them at home about it, -- gradually."

"If we had books, we could do a great deal at home."

"Yes, if, -- But we haven't. And we must have more time. We
couldn't do it at home."

"Papa wants us this summer. -- And I don't see how he can spare
us at all, Rufus."

"I am sure he will let us go," said the other steadily, though
with a touch of trouble in his face.

"We are just beginning to help him."

"We can help him much better the other way," said Rufus
quickly. "Farming is the most miserable slow way of making
money that ever was contrived."

"How do _you_ propose to make money?" inquired his brother
coolly.

"I don't know! I am not thinking of making money at present!"

"It takes a good deal to go to College, don't it?"

"Yes."

And again there was a little silence. And the eyes of both
were fixed on the river and the opposite hills, while they saw
only that distant world and the vague barrier between.

"But I intend to go, Winthrop," said his brother, looking at
him, with fire enough in his face to _burn up_ obstacles.

"Yes, you will go," the younger said calmly. The cool grey eye
did not speak the internal "So will I!" -- which stamped itself
upon his heart. They got up from the plough beam.

"I'll try for't," was Rufus's conclusion, as he shook himself.

"_You'll get it_," said Winthrop.

There was much love as well as ambition in the delighted look
with which his brother rewarded him. They parted to their
work. They ploughed the rest of their field: -- what did they
turn over besides the soil?

They wended their slow way back with the oxen when the evening
fell; but the yoke was off their own necks. The lingering
western light coloured another world than the morning had
shined upon. No longer bondsmen of the soil, they trode it
like masters. They untackled their oxen and let them out, with
the spirit of men whose future work was to be in a larger
field. Only Hope's little hand had lifted the weight from
their heads. And Hope's on