"I feel as if I had all the strength in the world. I could waste it and waste it, and then have enough to waste again."
"It isn't altogether strength. It's fire—the fire of youth. Bank it up and let it smoulder, or it will burn you up."
"How are you so wise, playmate? You are as wise as dear grannie."
He stretched up his hands in the darkness. The face he lifted to the shrouded heavens only the unseen citizens of the night could see, the beneficent powers that nurse and foster.
"It has been my study," he said, in a tone of awe, as if he had not before thought how strange it is never to squander. "All these years I have done nothing but think of my body, how to build up here, how to husband there. So much exercise, so much sleep, so much turning away from what burns up and tears. Well, I have done it. I have made myself into something as solid as the ground, as enduring as the rocks."
"Has it been—easy?" she ventured. "Have you liked to do it?"
"No, I have not liked to do it." Afterwards, in her own room, she thought of that question and understood the answer better. "I have never lavished anything," he said. "As soon as I saw what grannie was about, trying to give me a body to live in, I began to help her. We have done it. Sometimes I think she did it sitting there in her chair and praying to her God. I haven't done any spending. It has been all saving. But when the time comes, I shall spend it all at once."
She felt very far away from him.
"How, playmate?" she asked timidly.
He roused himself. "Never mind," he said. "That's not for us to think about to-night. Now run home, child, and go to bed."