"What did you think about it, papa!"

"Well, I've seen it happen in other people's lives, time and time
again; and now it's happened in ours. You think you're going to
be pushed right up against the wall; you can't see any way out,
or any hope at all; you think you're GONE--and then something you
never counted on turns up; and, while maybe you never do get back
to where you used to be, yet somehow you kind of squirm out of
being right SPANG against the wall. You keep on going--maybe you
can't go much, but you do go a little. See what I mean?"

"Yes. I understand, dear."

"Yes, I'm afraid you do," he said. "Too bad! You oughtn't to
understand it at your age. It seems to me a good deal as if the
Lord really meant for the young people to have the good times,
and for the old to have the troubles; and when anybody as young
as you has trouble there's a big mistake somewhere."

"Oh, no!" she protested.

But he persisted whimsically in this view of divine error: "Yes,
it does look a good deal that way. But of course we can't tell;
we're never certain about anything--not about anything at all.
Sometimes I look at it another way, though. Sometimes it looks
to me as if a body's troubles came on him mainly because he
hadn't had sense enough to know how not to have any--as if his
troubles were kind of like a boy's getting kept in after school
by the teacher, to give him discipline, or something or other.
But, my, my! We don't learn easy!" He chuckled mournfully. "Not