Uncle William shook his head with a slow smile. “I don’t believe I do. I ust to. Lord, yes! I ust to think about folks that was hungry till my stummick clean caved in. I ust to eat my dinner like it was sawdust, for fear I’d get a little comfort out of it, while somebody somewheres was starvin’—little childern, like enough. That was al’ays the hardest part of it—little childern. I ust to think some of foundin’ a’sylum up here on the rocks—sailin’ round the world and pickin’ up a boat-load and then bringin’ ’em up here and turnin’ ’em loose on the rocks, givin’ ’em all they could stuff to eat. And then one night, when I was cal’atin’ and figgerin’ on it, I saw that I couldn’t get half of ’em into my boat, nor a quarter, nor a tenth—jest a little corner of ’em. And then it come over me, all of a sudden, what a big job I’d tackled, and I jest turned it over to the Lord, then an there. And all the next day I kep’ kind o’ thinkin’ about it out here on the rocks—how he’d took a thousand year—mebbe ’t was more; a good long spell, they say—to get the rocks ready for folks to live on—jest the rocks! And like enough he knew what he was plannin’ to do, and didn’t expect me to finish it all up for him in fo’-five years. Since then I’ve been leavin’ it to him more—takin’ a hand when I could, but payin’ more attention to livin’. I sort o’ reckon that’s what he made us for—to live. The’ ’s a good deal o’ fin in it if you go at it right.”
“That’s a great idea, Uncle William,” said the artist.
“It’s comf’tabul,” assented Uncle William. “You get your livin’ as you go along, and a little suthin’ over. Seems ’s if some folks didn’t even get a livin’ they’re so busy doing things.”
He was silent for a while, his blue eyes following the light on the water. “The’ was a man I sailed with once,—a cur’us sort o’ chap,—and when he wa’n’t sober he could tell you interestin’ things. He hadn’t been a sailor al’ays—took to it ’cause he liked it, he said. And he tol’ me a good deal about the goings-on of the earth. Like enough ’t wa’n’t so—some on it—but it was interestin’. He told me ’t the earth was all red-hot once, and cooled off quicker on the outside—like a hot pertater, I s’pose. You’ve heard about it?” He looked inquiringly at the artist.
The artist nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, I’ve thought about that a good many times when I’ve been sailin’. I could see it all, jest the way he put it, the earth a-whirlin’ and twirlin’, and the fire and flames a-shootin’ up to the sky, and rocks and stones and stuff a’b’ilin’ and flyin’—” Uncle William’s eye dwelt lovingly on the picture. “I’d seem to see it all jest the way he tol’ it, and then I’d put my hand out over the side of the boat and trail it along in the water to cool off a little.” Uncle William chuckled. “Sometimes it seems ’s if you’d come a million miles all in a minute—rocks all along the shore, good hard rocks ’t you could set on, and the hill up to the sky with grass on it, green and soft, and the water all round. It a’most takes your breath away to come back like that from that red-hot ball he talked about and see it all lyin’ there, so cool and still, and the sun shinin’ on it. I got to thinkin’ ’bout it, days when I was sailin’, and wondering if mebbe the Lord wa’n’t gettin’ folks ready jest the way he did the rocks—rollin’ ’em over and havin’ ’em pound each other and claw and fight and cool off, slow-like, till byme-by they’d be good sweet earth and grass and little flowers—comf’tabul to live with.”
The artist sat up. “Do you mean to say you wouldn’t stop folks fighting if you could?”
Uncle William eyed the proposition. “Well I dunno’s I’d say jest that. I’ve thought about it a good many times. Men al’ays hev fit and I reckon they will—quite a spell yet. There’s Russia and Japan now: you couldn’t ’a’ stopped them fightin’ no more’n two boys that had got at it. All them Russians and them little Japs—we couldn’t ’a’ stopped ’em fightin’—the whole of us couldn’t hev stopped ’em—not unless we’d ’a’ took ’em by the scruff o’ the neck and thrown ’em down and set on ’em—one apiece. And I dunno’s that’d be much better’n fightin’—settin’ on ’em one apiece.”
The artist laughed out.
Uncle William beamed on him. “You see, this is the way I figger it: Russia and Japan wa’n’t fightin’ so much for anything they reely wanted to git. It was suthin’ in ’em that made ’em go for each other, tooth and nail, and pommel so—a kind o’ pizen bubbling and sizzling inside ’em; we’ve all got a little of it.” He smiled genially. “It has to work out slow-like. Some does it by fightin’ and some does it by prayin’; and I reckon the Lord’s in the fightin’, same as in the prayin’.”