“Hmm,” said Peter, dubious, his eyes nevertheless twinkling; “I cannot say that I have honestly a very close acquaintanceship with him—at least, I hope not. But I have never fancied him a pleasant person. He has”—Peter sought wildly in his mind for the best reason for the averred unpleasantness—“so little idea of playing the game.”
“Yes?” It was Dickie’s turn to be dubious now.
“Oh,” thought Peter distractedly, “I have not only to make statements, but I have to substantiate them!” Aloud he spoke, firmly, and with an air of conviction: “He does not play the game, because he pretends to be friendly when he isn’t, [Pg 188]and he tells us things are nice when they aren’t.” This, at all events, was good and orthodox teaching. Peter patted himself on the back, so to speak.
“Like the apple what Adam and Eve ate,” said Dickie solemnly; “they thought it was going to taste so nice, and make them very wise, but it was a sour apple, and they had to go away out of the garden ’cause they ate it.”
“Exactly!” said Peter, much relieved that Dickie should be taking the initiative as chronicler of biblical events, feeling, be it stated, somewhat hazy on these subjects himself.
There was a pause. Then, with a deep sigh, Dickie spoke again.
“I wish I knew things.”
“What things?” asked Peter, amused.
“Lots of things,” said Dickie. There was a world of unconscious yearning in the child’s voice. “I want to know lots of things. What made God think the world? Did He think me from the beginning, ’cause He knew everything? Why did He wait till now to make me? I’d so lots sooner have been a Viking. Why doesn’t He let us choose what we are to be? Why are some days nice and other days horrid, though everything [Pg 189]looks just ’xactly the same and just as sunny? Why don’t I know the whys of things?”
“Oh!” said Peter with a long-drawn breath, and a silence fell, while suddenly, and perhaps for almost the first time in his life, Peter faced the great eternal Question—the Everlasting Why of the Universe. And because he had no answer to give, because he had not as yet the faintest inkling of the answer, he was silent, though, all unconsciously, the child had put before him the problem his soul was inarticulately striving to solve.