Digging anything from the earth is connected to greed. Towns centered around borax, salt, gold, ore, oil, diamonds, coal, or silver spring up. The saying is “overnight.” There is speechifying, assembly of buildings, patriotism and old-fashioned know-how. In any mining town, first the reprobates move in, then the law to control the reprobates, then reprobate women, then the marrying kind, and eventually the do-gooders. In the new school the children learn to use their minds, not to depend on their bodies. They read longer and longer books, learn about Russia, Descartes, polynomials, that burning coal is a physical change since a new substance is created. Even though parents don’t understand, they ask what did you learn at school today? The children go away to college, talk about moving back most nights on the phone, but only visit at Christmas. The do-gooders age, and some of their children quietly usher them out of state to old folks homes. The neighbors who are left attend each other’s funerals, but no one can figure out who buries the last man left.