He had lost that intangible , all-real wealth of faith and idealism and zest ; he had bartered it away for the hard , yellow gold of the marketplace , and he realized at last how much poorer he was than when he had left that home valley . His was a name that stood for millions , but he was beggared of hope and purpose . No , he would not go down . There was no one left there , unchanged and unchanging , to welcome him . He would be a stranger there , even among his kin . He would stay awhile on the hill , until the night came down over it , and then he would go back to his own place . Down below him , on the crest of a little upland , he saw his old home , a weather-grey house , almost hidden among white birch and apple trees , with a thick fir grove to the north of it . He had been born in that old house ; his earliest memory was of standing on its threshold and looking afar up to the long green hills . `` What is over the hills ? '' he had asked of his mother . With a smile she had made answer , `` Many things , laddie . Wonderful things , beautiful things , heart-breaking things . '' `` Some day I shall go over the hills and find them all , Mother , '' he had said stoutly . She had laughed and sighed and caught him to her heart . He had no recollection of his father , who had died soon after his son 's birth , but how well he remembered his mother , his little , brown-eyed , girlish-faced mother ! He had lived on the homestead until he was twenty . He had tilled the broad fields and gone in and out among the people , and their life had been his life . But his heart was not in his work . He wanted to go beyond the hills and seek what he knew must be there . The valley was too narrow , too placid .
He longed XXXXX conflict and accomplishment .
for in of on over than that to until with