C. to benefit Tom and not for himself. Also near the end of the chapter, was the fact that Tom had a hard time doing his share of the work because Blake was so concerned under the pretext of Tom"s health that Blake did all Tom"s work for him, especially the heavy work. Also evident here is Blake"s concern, or knowledge rather, that Tom was something special and needed to develop his mind over his brawn. By the end of the first chapter, Cather has said to the reader to not jump to conclusions in the greed area of "Tom Outland"s Story." She doesn"t really hit this theme again until Tom goes to Washington D.C.

             The opening chapter of "Tom Outland"s Story" is ripe with little tidbits that point to things to come. Cather set up the greed/money theme as presented above. She introduces the Blue Mesa to us, which becomes essentially a character in this section of the book. She spends about a half of a page to describe the Blue Mesa which she starts out by saying, "The Blue Mesa was one of the landmarks we always saw from Pardee-landmarks mean so much in a flat country." (165) The reverence for the Blue Mesa starts here. As someone who has had experience hiking in all type of terrain, I can tell you; a landmark can save your life. Men have been known to talk to landmarks. To an outdoorsmen, landmarks are almost a religion of their own. This is important because the Blue Mesa becomes very important to Tom himself, and Cather lays that groundwork here. The Blue Mesa is important in the nature theme and the religion theme. Cather sets the mesa up as both in the first chapter. She sets up the nature theme here when Tom says, "all summer long. we planned how we were going to climb the mesa and be the first men up there." (166) Not only does this tidbit foreshadow the plot because they do eventually get up there, but it also tells us what Cather is trying to say about nature, which is, people don"t understand it, they don"t care for it, and they mess it up even when they don"t mean to.