SILAS: 'The best that has been thought and said in the world!' (_slowly rising, and as if the dream of years is bringing him to his feet_) That's what that hill is for! (_pointing_) Don't you see it? End of our trail, we climb a hill and plant a college. Plant a college, so's after we are gone that college says for us, says in people learning has made more: 'That is why we took this land.' GRANDMOTHER: (_incredulous_) You mean, Silas, you're going to _give the hill away_? SILAS: The hill at the end of our trail--how could we keep that? GRANDMOTHER: Well, I want to know why not! Hill or level--land's land and not a thing you give away. SILAS: Well, don't scold _me_. I'm not giving it away. It's giving itself away, get down to it. GRANDMOTHER: Don't talk to me as if I was feeble-minded. SILAS: I'm talking with all the mind I've got. If there's not mind in what I say, it's because I've got no mind. But I have got a mind, (_to_ FEJEVARY, _humorously_) Haven't I? You ought to know. Seeing as you gave it to me. FEJEVARY: Ah, no--I didn't give it to you. SILAS: Well, you made me know 'twas there. You said things that woke things in me and I thought about them as I ploughed. And that made me know there had to be a college there--wake things in minds--so ploughing's more than ploughing. What do you say, Felix? FELIX: It--it's a big idea, Uncle Silas. I love the way you put it. It's only that I'm wondering-- SILAS: Wondering how it can ever be a Harvard College? Well, it can't. And it needn't be (_stubbornly_) It's a college in the cornfields--where the Indian maize once grew. And it's for the boys of the cornfields--and the girls. There's few can go to Harvard College--but more can climb that hill, (_turn of the head from the hill to_ FELIX) Harvard on a hill? (_As_ FELIX _smiles no_, SILAS _turns back to the hill_) A college should be on a hill. They can see it then from far around. See it as they go out to the barn in the morning; see it when they're shutting up at night. 'Twill make a difference--even to them that never go. GRANDMOTHER: Now, Silas--don't be hasty. SILAS: Hasty? It's been company to me for years. Came to me one night--must 'a' been ten years ago--middle of a starry night as I was comin' home from your place (_to_ FEJEVARY) I'd gone over to lend a hand with a sick horse an'-- FEJEVARY: (_with a grateful smile_) That was nothing new. SILAS: Well, say, I'd sit up with a sick horse that belonged to the meanest man unhung. But--there were stars that night had never been there before. Leastways I'd not seen 'em. And the hill--Felix, in all your travels east, did you ever see anything more beautiful than that hill? FELIX: It's like sculpture.