Part 4 (1/2)
”What do youthe import of this ”around”
”Well,” answered the boat builder, ”he don't take any ”
”What does he live on then?” I persisted, still wondering at the significance of ”around in religious work”
”I don't know He used to fish for a living Fishes yet once in a while, I believe”
”He makes models of yachts,” put in one of the bystanders ”He sold the New Haven Road one for two hundred dollars here not long ago”
A vision of a happy-go-lucky Jack-of-all-trades arose before me A visionary--a theorist
”What else?” I asked, hoping to draw them out ”What makes you all think he is contented? What does he do that makes him so contented?”
”Well,” said Mr Main, after a considerable pause and with much of syood man, that's all That's why he's contented He does as near as he can what he thinks he ought to by other people--poor people”
”You won't find anybody with a kinder heart than Charlie Potter,” put in the boat-builder ”That's the trouble with hiood
He don't look after hiht, I say A fellow has to look out for himself soht you are, Henry,” echoed a truculent sea voice fro both amused and interested, intensely so
”If he wasn't that way, he'd be a darned sight better off than he is,”
said a thirty-year-old helper, from a far corner of the room
”What makes you say that?” I queried ”Isn't it better to be kind-hearted and generous than not?”
”It's all right to be kind-hearted and generous, but that ain't sayin'
that you've got to give your last cent away and let your fary”
”Is that what Charlie Potter does?”
”Well, no, hty near to it at times He and his wife and his adopted children have been pretty close to it at times”
You see, this was the center, nearly, for all village gossip and philosophic speculation, and many of the most i, were here thrashed put
”There's no doubt but that's where Charlie is wrong,” put in old Mr
Main a little later ”He don't always stop to think of his fa over-generous?” I asked of the young ht,” he replied in a rather irritated and peevish tone; ”I ain't going to go into details now, but there's people around here that hang on hiive to, that he hadn't orter”
”I believe in lookin' out for Number One, that's what I believe in,”
interrupted the boat-ivin'