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 them over the other day. I know now what's the matter with them, too; I was always writing about things I didn't know about.

That's the way all writers begin, I'm sure, Lennie tried to convince him. You were aspiring to know about those things.

I want to know everything, everything, Gareth repeated, and, he went on, I'm going to. When I do, then, perhaps, I can write about Iowa.

You're going to college, Gareth. You'll learn a good deal there.

That's a beginning. He hesitated for a moment. I did expect to go to college, he continued. I've always planned to go. I want to go. Mother wants me to go, but you know father. He's dead set against it, calls it a waste of time. He can't see it at all.

O, it's horrid of him! A boy like you! It isn't as though he couldn't afford it.

It isn't the money. He has a horror of any kind of education. Thinks it's a waste of time; thinks boys should go to work when they get through the grade schools, or even sooner. He wouldn't have let me go through High School if he'd had his way. Mother just made him let me. She may make him let me do this, but I'm tired of arguing. Besides, I don't care much any more.

O, Gareth, don't say that! Don't admit it, even if you feel that way. You're the one boy in Maple Valley who deserves a good education.