When his father died, he had to quit school. Maria rubbed her widow’s hands together in anticipation. How could she make use of a fifteen-year-old child in the building of a Temple? Well, at that point you could always turn him into a bank employee. So he started at the New York State Bank, where his uncle was a director. But when they brought him out to the end of the New York jetty, nobody told him that the heart of a poetic child holds more lashing masts and more billowing sails than all the ports in the world rolled together.

And now, here he is within these walls—he of all people—freighted with his squadrons. His wake smells of tar, hemp, wet pine, iodine, shellfish, and clam chowder. It’s unbearable. He can’t stand it. The next year, he’s already gone. Supposedly he’s lending a hand to his brother. In reality he’s reading, he’s studying: He’s shifting his fleets into open water.

Nothing prevents us from constantly widening our horizons. The scope of what we can see is limited only by the length of our stride and, accordingly, by our own powers. Another year and here he is already on his uncle’s farm near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Without realizing it, he’s racing to leeward ahead of a storm that’s pursuing him. He’s sailing out past the stony Maria. Instinctively, he knows he’s more confident in his maneuvers when he’s out at sea. But for the moment: a peaceful respite in the countryside. He writes to his mother that he’s the only one who’s brave enough to get close to the bull. He writes to his brother: “There’s nothing left of all the grand designs I had for my life. I’d rather face a really grave danger and finally stop doubting myself.”

Springtime has never been so beautiful in the orchards of Pittsfield. The violence of the blossoming amazes the farmers. There’s such a heavy mantle on the trees, they’re groaning like they’ve been overloaded with snow. At night, an exceptionally limpid varnish makes even the darkest shapes look green, and the stars seem so close to earth you can almost hear them humming. The wind doesn’t just blow, it promenades. An unusual fecundity multiplies the numbers of creatures in nests, in stalls, in cowsheds, in pens, in sties, in hutches. The yearling flocks quiver like an enormous layer of jelly fat over the whole of the United States. Even in the city of New York, they can be heard being born in tremendous numbers, just beyond the suburbs; and the sound of omnibuses, ferryboats, hackney cabs, and drive belts is drowned out by the increasing din of mooing and yapping, the swelling of buds, and the quacking of geese.

Maria writes to the farmer:

A very productive year is in the making. I want you to help him learn what business is all about. Tell Herman I’ve persuaded my brother to give him fourteen apple trees, the ones behind the cowshed in the big, square orchard. Make it clear: He isn’t giving him the land or the trees, he’s giving him the fruit. Tell Herman he’ll have to pick the apples and sell them. He’ll let me know how much he gets for them. For the time being, until the harvest is done, I order you to give him a couple of geese that haven’t started laying yet. He’ll be just as accountable for these, but with the chicks he’ll be free to do as he pleases. He should try to sell them too, to top up his purse. We’ll see how much he can get for them. And he also needs to look after fattening a pig.