“To keep them from eating green apples a second time.”
“That’s so, aunty; but you—why do you have pain?”
“Perhaps because my great-grandpapa would eat green apples. ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’”
“I don’t understand.”
“No! That is an enigma for more than you. I do not know why I have pain. Having it, I know what to do with it. I don’t know why Christ had pain. God might have willed to help us in other ways, but at least I know what to do with the story of that anguish. If he was, as we think, a perfect man, Ned, he must have suffered as only a man who was also more than man could suffer. As he chose his pain to be, and taught men how to use it, so must I in my small way.”
“And wouldn’t you choose, aunty, just to have no pain, if you could?”
“Get thee behind me, little Satan,” she laughed. “If I could make a world without pain, would I choose? I don’t know. My pain has been a bitter friend. Come,” and she rose. The boy, whose thoughts and questions were beyond his years, walked on in silence, now and then glancing at the woman’s face.
“Does no one know, Aunt Anne, why we must have pain?”
“Only one man knew, Ned, and he suffered and was silent.”
“It seems dreadful, Aunt Anne.”