“I will, Uncle Zed.  Thank you for what you have said.”

Dorian completed his four years high school.  Going to the University might come later, but now he was moved by a spirit of activity to do bigger things with his farm, and to enlarge it, if possible.

About this time, dry-farming had taken the attention of the farmers in his locality, and many of them had procured lands on the sloping foothills.  Dorian, with a number of other young men had gone up the nearby canyon to the low hills of the valley beyond and had taken up lands.  That first summer Dorian spent much of his time in breaking up the land.  As timber was not far away, he built himself a one-roomed log house and some corrals and outhouses.  A mountain stream rushed by the lower corner of his farm, and its wild music sang him to sleep when he spent the night in the hills.  He furnished his “summer residence” with a few simple necessities so that he could live there a number of days at a time.  He minded not the solitude.  The wild odorous verdure of the hills, the cool breezes, the song of the distant streams, the call of the birds, all seemed to harmonize with his own feelings at that time.  He had a good kerosene lamp, and at nights when he was not too tired, he read.  On his visits to the city he usually had an eye for book bargains, and thus his board shelving came to be quite a little library.  He had no method in his collecting, no course of connected study.  At one time he would leisurely read one of Howell’s easy-going novels, at another time he would be kept wide-eyed until midnight with “Lorna Doone” or with “Ben Hur.”

Dorian had heard of Darwin, of Huxley, of Ingersol and of Tom Payne, but he had never read anything but selections from these writers.  Now he obtained a copy of the “Origin of Species” and a book by Ingersol.  These he read carefully.  Darwin’s book was rather heavy, but by close application, the young student thought he learned what the scientist was “driving at.”  This book disturbed him somewhat.  There seemed to be much truth in it, but also some things which did not agree with what he had been taught to be true.  In this he realized his lack of knowledge.  More knowledge must clear up any seeming contradiction, he reasoned.  Ingersol was more readable, snappy, witty, hitting the Bible in a fearless way.  Dorian had no doubt that all of Ingersol’s points could be answered, as he himself could refute many of them.

One day as Dorian was browsing as usual in a book store he came across a cheap copy of Drummond’s “Natural Law in the Spiritual World,” the book which he had given Uncle Zed.  As he wanted a copy himself, he purchased this one and took it with him to his cabin in the hills.  Immediately he was interested in the book, and he filled its pages with copious notes and marks of emphasis.

It was Sunday afternoon in mid-summer at Greenstreet.  The wheat again stood in the shock.  The alfalfa waved in scented purple.  Dorian and the old philosopher of Greenstreet sat in the shade of the cottonwood and looked out on the farm scene as they talked.