entirely possessed by the idea that "something ought to be done," but
what it was he did not know.

The lid of Pandora's box had flown open and had come off suddenly after
smashing the hinges, and Hope had flown out of the window. The boy
thought it was clearly his duty to catch her and get her into prison
again, and then to nail down the lid. He had not the smallest doubt that
this was what he ought to do, but the trouble lay in finding out how to
do it, a little difficulty that humanity has faced for a good many
thousand years. On the other hand, if he failed, as seemed probable, he
was almost sure that his father would fall ill and die, or go quite mad
in a few hours. He wished his mother were there; she would have known
how to cheer the desperate man, and could probably have made him smile
in a few minutes without really doing anything at all. Those were the
things women could do very well, the boy thought, and they ought always
to be at hand to do them when wanted. He himself could only sit there
and pretend to be busy, as children mostly do when they see their elders
in trouble. But that made him wild.

"I say, father," he broke out suddenly, "can't I do anything? Try and
think!"

"That's what I'm trying to do," answered Overholt, sitting down at last
on the stool before the work-bench and staring at the wall, with his
back turned to his son. "But I can't! There's something wrong with my
head."

"You want to see a doctor," said the boy. "I'll go and see if I can get
one of them to come out here." He rose as if to go at once.