And this sense of lying in the heart of an enormous circular interval touched everybody with delicious peace; each had apparently found something real, and was content merely to lie and—be with it. All came gradually to sitting or reclining postures. Yet there was no sense of fatigue; any instant they would be up again and looking.
Occasionally one or other of them spoke, but it was not the kind of speech that struggled to express difficult ideas with tedious sentences of many words. There was very little to say: mere statements of indubitable reality could be so easily and briefly made.
"Now," said Tim, unafraid of contradiction.
"Then," said Judy, equally certain of herself.
"Now then," declared Uncle Felix, positive at last of something.
"Naturally," affirmed Aunt Emily.
"Of course," growled Come-Back Stumper. And while WEEDEN, looking contentedly at his bursting sack, put in "Always," the Policeman, without referring to his notebook, added from the fence, "That's right." The remarks of Thompson and Mrs. Horton were not audible, for they were talking to one another some little distance away beside the Rubbish Heap, but their conversation seemed equally condensed and eloquent, judging by the satisfied expression on their faces. Thompson probably said, "Well," the cook adding, "I never!"
The Tramp, stretched out beside his little fire of burning sticks, however, said more than any of them. He also said it shortly—as shortly as the children. There was never any question who was Leader.
"Yes," he mentioned in a whisper that flowed about them with a sound like singing wind.
It summed up everything in a single word. It made them warm, as though a little flame had touched them. All the languages of the world, using all their sentences at once, could have said no more than that consummate syllable—in the way he said it: "Yes!" It was the word the whole Day uttered.