He had to stay in a schoolroom and breathe chalk dust.
Whatever the battle of life might be, he was going to fight it out-of-doors; not like imprisoned school-teachers and clerks and bookkeepers in First National banks.

Only when alone under that splatter of stars did he feel the moment big with more than a mere release from textbooks.

Then at last he knew that he had become a man and must put away childish things, and his mind floated on the thought, off to those distant stars where other boys had that night, perhaps unwittingly, become men.
He wished that people would not pester him with solemn questions about what he now meant to make of himself.

They seemed to believe that he should be concerned about this.

Winona was especially insistent.