Scott Burton, Forester

Scott Burton has made a choice that will cost him everything familiar: instead of the medical career his father demands, he will become a forester. In 1917, this is almost radical, a young man from a small New England town, turning his back on status and security to chase something the world doesn't yet take seriously. He leaves behind his father, his hometown, and most painfully, his closest friend Dick Bradshaw, whose complicated feelings about the separation ripple beneath every parting word. Cheyney writes with quiet precision about what it costs to follow your own compass when everyone else demands you follow theirs. Scott arrives at forestry school in Minnesota a stranger in every sense, disoriented by the city, uncertain among new peers, homesick for woods that haven't been logged yet. But what emerges is a portrait of a young man claiming his own life with stubborn grace. The novel captures something universal: that moment when you realize the path your parents chose isn't your path, and the grief and freedom that come with that knowledge.