“Mr. Follette, there’s a thing I hate to do, and that’s to bait my hook with a worm. I’d much rather put on something that wasn’t alive. Why is it that everything eats up something else?”
Jane peered down at the man poised on the rock. It was Evans! He was winding his reel against a taut line. “I’ve caught a snag,” he said; “look out, Sandy, there’s something on your hook.”
As they landed the small catch with much excitement, Jane was aware of the strong swing of Evans’ figure, the brown of his cheeks, the brightness of his glance as he spoke to the boys.
He gave the death stroke to the silver flapping fish with a jab of his knife-blade, and the boy on the bridge complained, “There you are, killing things. I don’t like it, do you? Everything we eat? The woods are full of killing. It is dreadful when we think of it.”
“It is dreadful.” Evans sat down on the rock and looked across at the boy on the bridge. “But there are more dreadful things than death—injustice, and cruelty, and hate. And more than all—fear. And you must think of this, Arthur, that what we call a violent death is sometimes the easiest. An old animal with teeth gone, trying to exist. That’s dreadfulness. Or an old person racked by pains. Much better if both could have been dead in the glory of youth.”
He had always had that quick and vivid voice, but this certainty of phrase was a resurrection. He spoke without hesitation. Sure of himself. Sure of the things he was about to say.
“You boys needn’t think that I don’t know what I am talking about. I do. When I came back from France there was something wrong. I was afraid of everything. I lived for months in dread of my shadow. It was awful. Nothing can be worse. Then, one night I came to see that God’s greatest gift to man is—strength to endure.”
He flung it at them—and their wide eyes answered him. After a moment Arthur said, huskily, “Gee, that’s great.”
Sandy sighed heavily. “I saw a picture the other day of a boy who wanted to play baseball, and he had to hold the baby. I reckon that’s what you mean. Most of us have to hold the baby when we want to play baseball.”
The others laughed, then young Arthur said, “It looks to me as if life is just one darned thing after another.”