Every man's hand was
against his--his should be against every man's. No one would help him--he
would help himself.
He lifted the black damp hair from his knit forehead, and looked round to
cool his hot face. Then he saw what a regal night it was. He knelt
silently and looked up. A thousand eyes were looking down at him, bright
and so cold. There was a laughing irony in them.
"So hot, so bitter, so angry? Poor little mortal?"
He was ashamed. He folded his arms, and sat on the ridge of the roof
looking up at them.
"So hot, so bitter, so angry?"
It was as though a cold hand had been laid upon his throbbing forehead, and
slowly they began to fade and grow dim. Tant Sannie and the burnt book,
Bonaparte and the broken machine, the box in the loft, he himself sitting
there--how small they all became! Even the grave over yonder. Those stars
that shone on up above so quietly, they had seen a thousand such little
existences fight just so fiercely, flare up just so brightly and go out;
and they, the old, old stars, shone on forever.
"So hot, so angry, poor little soul?" they said.
The riem slipped from his fingers; he sat with his arms folded, looking up.
"We," said the stars, have seen the earth when it was young. We have seen
small things creep out upon its surface--small things that prayed and loved
and cried very loudly, and then crept under it again.
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