"We should be resigned to what is given us," said Aunt Seréna, not quite at her ease.
"And yet be thankful only for all those delicious things? Although we know that trials are better?"
Johannes spoke seriously, without a thought of irony, and Aunt Seréna, glad to be able to close the conversation, replied:
"Yes, Johannes, always be thankful. Ask the dominie about it."
Dominie Kraalboom came in the evening, and, as Aunt Seréna repeated to him Johannes' questions, his face took on the very same scowl it always wore when he stood up in the pulpit; his wry mouth rolled the r's, and, with the emphasis of delightful certainty, he uttered the following:
"My dear boy, that which you, in your childlike simplicity, have asked, is—ah, indeed—ah, the great problem over which the pious in all ages have pondered and meditated—pondered and meditated. It behooves us to enjoy gratefully, and without questioning, what the good Lord, in His eternal mercy, is pleased to pour out upon us. We should, as much as lies in our power, relieve the afflictions that He allots to others, and at the same time teach the sufferers to be resigned to the inevitable. For He knows what we all have need of, and tempers the wind to the shorn lamb."
Then said Johannes: "So you, and Aunt Seréna, and I, have a good time now, because we have no need of all that misery? And that sick boy does need it? Is that it, Dominie?"
"Yes, my dear boy, that is it."
"And has Daatje, too, need of privations? Daatje said that she was converted as completely as you and Aunt Seréna were."
"Daatje is a good, pious soul, entirely satisfied with what the Lord has apportioned her."