The Plant Doctor of Diamond, Missouri

In the 1870s, a frail orphaned boy named George Washington Carver wandered the woods near Diamond, Missouri, cradling wilted plants in his small hands. Neighbors noticed something remarkable — whatever George touched seemed to revive. They called him "the plant doctor," though he was barely old enough to reach the kitchen table. George felt pulled into creation's mysteries the way a river pulls toward the sea — persistent, wordless, irresistible.…