that those leaves had eyes next day. But he brought
me a fish to trade. He was a nice boy.

SILAS: Probably we killed him.

GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe he killed us. Will Owens' family was
massacred just after this. Like as not my cookie Indian helped out
there. Something kind of uncertain about the Indians.

SILAS: I guess they found something kind of uncertain about us.

GRANDMOTHER: Six o' one and half a dozen of another. Usually is.

SILAS: (_to_ FEJEVARY) I wonder if I'm wrong. You see, I never went to
school--

GRANDMOTHER: I don't know why you say that, Silas. There was two winters
you went to school.

SILAS: Yes, mother, and I'm glad I did, for I learned to read there, and
liked the geography globe. It made the earth so nice to think about. And
one day the teacher told us all about the stars, and I had that to think
of when I was driving at night. The other boys didn't believe it was so.
But I knew it was so! But I mean school--the way Mr Fejevary went to
school. He went to universities. In his own countries--in other
countries. All the things men have found out, the wisest and finest
things men have thought since first they began to think--all that was
put before them.

FEJEVARY: (_with a gentle smile_) I fear I left a good deal of it
untouched.

SILAS: You took a plenty. Tell in your eyes you've thought lots about
what's been thought. And that's what I was setting out to say. It makes
something of men--learning. A house that's full of books makes a
different kind of people. Oh, of course, if the books aren't there just
to show off.

GRANDMOTHER: Like in Mary Baldwin's new house.

SILAS: (_trying hard to see it_) It's not the learning itself--it's the
life that grows up from learning. Learning's like soil. Like--like
fertilizer. Get richer. See more. Feel more. You believe that?

FEJEVARY: Culture should do it.

SILAS: Does in your house. You somehow know how it is for the other
fellow more'n we do.

GRANDMOTHER: Well, Silas Morton, when you've your wood to chop an' your
water to carry, when you kill your own cattle and hogs, tend your own
horses and hens, make your butter, soap, and cook for whoever the Lord
sends--there's none too many hours of the day left to be polite in.

SILAS: You're right, mother. It had to be that way. But now that we buy
our soap--we don't want to say what soap-making made us.

GRANDMOTHER: We're honest.

SILAS: Yes. In a way. But there's another kind o' honesty,