I USE MY OWN COMPASS AT A FORK IN THE ROAD Swiftly now I move across the border into manhood--a serious, eager, restless manhood.

It was the fashion of the young those days.
I spent a summer of hard work in the fields.

Evenings I read the books which Mr.Wright had loaned to me, Blackstone's _Commentaries_ and _Greenleaf on Evidence_ and a translation by Doctor Bowditch of LaPlace's _Mecanique Celeste_.

The latter I read aloud.

I mention it because in a way it served as an antidote for that growing sense of expansion in my intellect.