Then came the day when Mrs. Redmond propped them up a little on their cots to watch the sunset. Their open windows overlooked the ledge and deep ravine below.
There once again Westy watched the huge red ball slowly disintegrate until the blue background and fleecy clouds became obliterated as it dropped behind the mountain opposite, leaving the vast ethereal spaces a mass of crimson-purple fire and the western heavens a sphere apart.
Even this, thought Westy, cannot last. This rainbow spectacle so vast and commanding in its great beauty must also pay homage to the law of gravitation, withdrawing its place in the scheme of things and making way for the somber shadows of twilight.
Everything was silent in this quiet hour but the brook. It sounded loudest in the twilight and tinkled its silvery way over the rocks and into the chasm below.
“Rip, that mountain over there—”
“Yes?”
“The world. Reality! It’s horrible and real. I’d rather live in my imagination here—after facing those real things again, wouldn’t you?”
“You bet!”
“To be drowning, to be hungry and thirsty and cold—that’s real! It’s then we know what life really is, eh? No make-believe about that. You almost hate everything you’ve loved before. I mean the sun when you’re thirsty, the night and the rain that keep you back from finding your way and the barren earth that won’t yield you nourishment. That’s real and it won’t do a thing for you. You’re just left to make or break with two hands and two feet, no matter how helpless Nature has made you. Am I right?”
“What? You ask me that? After this, Wes, I’m willing to learn from you—not give my paltry opinion on anything.”