At dinner time
they built a little fire to make their coffee and broil a generous
portion of their catch. Then lying at ease on the bank of the great
spring, they talked as only those can talk who get close enough to the
great heart of Mother Nature to feel strongly their common kinship with
her and with their fellows.
After one of those long silences that come so easily at such a time, Dan
tossed a pebble far out into the big pool and watched it sink down, down,
down, until he lost it in the unknown depths.
"Doctor, where does it come from?"
"Where does what come from?"
"This stream. You say its volume is always the same--that it is
unaffected by heavy rains or long droughts. How do you account for it?"
"I don't account for it," grunted the Doctor, with a twinkle in his eye,
"I fish in it."
Dan laughed. "And that," he said slowly, "is your philosophy of life."
The other made no answer.
Choosing another pebble carefully, Dan said, "Speaking as a
preacher--please elaborate."
"Speaking as a practitioner--you try it," returned the Doctor.
The big fellow stretched himself out on his back, with his hands clasped
beneath his head. He spoke deliberately.
"Well, you do not know from whence your life comes, and it goes after a
short course, to lose itself with many others in the great stream that
reaches--at last, and is lost in--the Infinite." The Doctor seemed
interested. Dan continued, half talking to himself: "It is not for you
to waste your time in useless speculation as to the unknowable source of
your life-stream, or in seeking to trace it in the ocean.
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