“I suppose it is,” Dick admitted, “but it leads to disappointment very often.”
“Of course. But in that case you suffer the ill, whatever it is, only once; while the pessimist suffers it both before it befalls and when it comes. That involves a sheer waste of the power of endurance.”
Larry had forgotten to eat while his brother delivered this little discourse, for he had never heard Cal talk in so serious a fashion. Indeed, he had come to think of his brother as a trifler who could never be persuaded to seriousness.
“Where on earth did you get that thought, Cal?” he asked, when Cal ceased to speak.
“It is perfectly sound, isn’t it?” was the boy’s reply.
“I think it is. But where did you get it?”
“If it is sound, it doesn’t matter where I got it, or how. But to satisfy your curiosity, I’ll tell you that I thought it out down here in the woods when I was a runaway. I was so often in trouble as to what was going to happen, and it so often happened that it didn’t happen after all, that I got to wondering one day what was the use of worrying about things that might never happen. I was alone in the woods, you know, and I had plenty of time to think. So little by little I thought out the optimistic philosophy and adopted it as the rule of my life. Of course I could not formulate it then as I do now. I didn’t know what the words ‘optimism’ and ‘pessimism’ meant, but my mind got a good grasp upon the ideas underlying them. There! My sermon is done. I have only to announce that there will be no more preaching at this camp-meeting. I’m going to take a look at your well, Tom, and if the water is as good as you say, I’m going to empty the rain water out of the kegs and refill them. Rain water, you know, goes bad a good deal sooner than other water—especially sand-filtered water.”
“I reckon Cal is right, Dick,” said Tom, when their companion was out of earshot.
“Yes, of course he is, but did you ever stub your toe? It’s a little bit hard to be optimistic on occasions like that.”
“I reckon that’s hardly what Cal meant—”