want to take my chance. I want my careening riot, and I want it while
I am young, but not while I am too young. And I'm going to have it.
And in the meantime I play the game at college, I hold myself, I equip
myself, so that when I turn loose I am going to have the best chance
of my best. Oh, believe me, I do not always sleep well of nights."

"You mean?" queried Mr. Crockett.

"Sure. That's just what I mean. I haven't gone wild yet, but just
watch me when I start."

"And you will start when you graduate?"

The remarkable youngster shook his head.

"After I graduate I'm going to take at least a year of post-graduate
courses in the College of Agriculture. You see, I'm developing a
hobby--farming. I want to do something ... something constructive. My
father wasn't constructive to amount to anything. Neither were you
fellows. You struck a new land in pioneer days, and you picked up
money like a lot of sailors shaking out nuggets from the grass roots
in a virgin placer--"

"My lad, I've some little experience in Californian farming," Mr.
Crockett interrupted in a hurt way.

"Sure you have, but you weren't constructive. You were--well, facts
are facts--you were destructive. You were a bonanza farmer. What did
you do? You took forty thousand acres of the finest Sacramento Valley
soil and you grew wheat on it year after year. You never dreamed of