it’s fine to have. I’ve heard fifty ministers try to explain why a rich man cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, and I’ve never heard an explanation yet. But as surely as I’ve lived, there are other things worth more than money. Again, America is not a bad place. But it’s very hard in America for you to have money and the important things, too. You must decide on four or five things that are of most importance to you. Look at me! They will be more important than money, David, and if you turn your back on those things, your heart will wither and die.
“David, I don’t want to turn you against your Aunt Reba. She’s not evil. She’s stupid. She has lots of money, and she could buy you clothes and books and pencils. But she won’t do it. She thinks she can save that money and spend it on something better than a human being. What, I ask you? What’s better? I sent four boys to college, and if they knew I was here now I think their hearts would break. But I’ve never told them. They weren’t even my sons. Look! If they spent money on me now it would soon be buried with me. But if they do something good for a boy just growing up, it’ll go on forever.”
When the great pain came, Daniel fought with all his frail strength. He turned and threw his skinny shoulders into the chest of the pain, kicked at it, clutched its gray outlines with his bare hands.
“Oh, David!” the nurse cried again. “Please call me when itstarts!” Her voice broke and she sniffled. “Why doesn’t your goddamned aunt take you out of here? That old bitch!” As if she were angry with David she thrust him violently from the room.
On Sunday Daniel said: “Reading and travel are the two best things besides people. Travel is best, but some books are very great. You should read all the books you can get before you’re twenty. If you don’t need glasses by the time you’re thirty, you can consider your life wasted. Maybe books are best, because you don’t have to have money to read. And there’s this difference, too. A man can travel all over the world and come back the same kind of fool he was when he started. You can’t do that with books.
“But you needn’t spend a great deal on travel, either. Nor do you have to go very far. Just set out for yourself some day and walk to the canal. I’ve been all over the world, and the canal north of New Hope is the best place of all, because there the land is just the way God made it. But in spring, of course, any place is beautiful, because in spring fires leap from your heart, and you can see things that aren’t there.
“And wherever you go on the face of the earth have the humility to think that a thousand years ago someone pretty much like you stood there and a thousand years from now a boy like you will be there. And in two thousand years boys and places and people will have been pretty much the same.
“A lot of nonsense is spoken about work. Some of the finest men I’ve known were the laziest. Never work because it’s expected of you. Find out how much work you must do to live and be happy. Don’t do any more.
“But thinking is something different, altogether! Think always as if the hot hand of hell were grabbing for you. Think to the limit of your mind. Imagine, dream, hope, want things, drive yourself to goodness. Whatever you do, David, do it to the absolute best of your ability. Never take the easy way where thinking is concerned.
“As for churches, they do much more good than harm, but churches where women are in command are often evil places, for no minister can speak honestly there.”
In these days of monologue David sometimes interrupted with strange questions. He was living in a world of ferment. Outside his window a horse-chestnut tree had broken into handsome pyramids of flowers. All day and through the evening bees gossiped among the stately blossoms until the tree seemed like a village store on Saturday night. There was aglorious ache, a marvelous
“David, I don’t want to turn you against your Aunt Reba. She’s not evil. She’s stupid. She has lots of money, and she could buy you clothes and books and pencils. But she won’t do it. She thinks she can save that money and spend it on something better than a human being. What, I ask you? What’s better? I sent four boys to college, and if they knew I was here now I think their hearts would break. But I’ve never told them. They weren’t even my sons. Look! If they spent money on me now it would soon be buried with me. But if they do something good for a boy just growing up, it’ll go on forever.”
When the great pain came, Daniel fought with all his frail strength. He turned and threw his skinny shoulders into the chest of the pain, kicked at it, clutched its gray outlines with his bare hands.
“Oh, David!” the nurse cried again. “Please call me when itstarts!” Her voice broke and she sniffled. “Why doesn’t your goddamned aunt take you out of here? That old bitch!” As if she were angry with David she thrust him violently from the room.
On Sunday Daniel said: “Reading and travel are the two best things besides people. Travel is best, but some books are very great. You should read all the books you can get before you’re twenty. If you don’t need glasses by the time you’re thirty, you can consider your life wasted. Maybe books are best, because you don’t have to have money to read. And there’s this difference, too. A man can travel all over the world and come back the same kind of fool he was when he started. You can’t do that with books.
“But you needn’t spend a great deal on travel, either. Nor do you have to go very far. Just set out for yourself some day and walk to the canal. I’ve been all over the world, and the canal north of New Hope is the best place of all, because there the land is just the way God made it. But in spring, of course, any place is beautiful, because in spring fires leap from your heart, and you can see things that aren’t there.
“And wherever you go on the face of the earth have the humility to think that a thousand years ago someone pretty much like you stood there and a thousand years from now a boy like you will be there. And in two thousand years boys and places and people will have been pretty much the same.
“A lot of nonsense is spoken about work. Some of the finest men I’ve known were the laziest. Never work because it’s expected of you. Find out how much work you must do to live and be happy. Don’t do any more.
“But thinking is something different, altogether! Think always as if the hot hand of hell were grabbing for you. Think to the limit of your mind. Imagine, dream, hope, want things, drive yourself to goodness. Whatever you do, David, do it to the absolute best of your ability. Never take the easy way where thinking is concerned.
“As for churches, they do much more good than harm, but churches where women are in command are often evil places, for no minister can speak honestly there.”
In these days of monologue David sometimes interrupted with strange questions. He was living in a world of ferment. Outside his window a horse-chestnut tree had broken into handsome pyramids of flowers. All day and through the evening bees gossiped among the stately blossoms until the tree seemed like a village store on Saturday night. There was aglorious ache, a marvelous
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