Chapter Two Summary

Scipio, New York, is the town where the college of Tarkington as well as the nearby Athena prison across a shimmering lake exist. Eugene relates the history of the early American valley and how its founders made the covered wagons that many pioneers rode to settle the west. The Mohiga Wagon Company and its creator, Aaron Tarkington, became a huge success. Tarkington, who suffered unjustly from dyslexia, decides to use his money to create an educational center that will especially cater to students such as himself who having learning disabilities and have been discriminated against at more traditional universities. Though modest, the Tarkington University slowly grows into a prestigious if very small school of higher learning. Eugene tells how Elias Tarkington, a descendant's of Aaron's, was nearly shot to death at Gettysburg during the Civil War when a Confederate soldier mistakenly...