
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Eileen Wedd, October 25, 1930.
“What makes the leaves fall off?” asked the five-year-old.
The two were staring up at the oak tree. With every sigh of wind, leaves drifted down.
“It’s God makes them fall,” said the elder.
“Why doesn’t God make them stick on?” demanded the small fellow with mild indignation. “They are prettier sticking on. It would be summer then, and we could wear gym shirts.”
“God makes the fall off,” said the elder, who, being nine, speaks with a fine note of scorn in making these explanations of life’s mysteries. “He makes them all fall off, and pretty soon the trees are bare naked. The way you are in the bath.”
“And you, too,” put in the small boy.
“I bath myself,” corrected the elder. There was a distinction. “Anyway, God makes the trees naked. He turns the grass brown, it rains and gets cold, and then comes the snow.”
“Sometimes He leaves it summer,” said the little one.
“Never!” said the elder. “It always comes winter. He never leaves it summer.”
“I remember when it was all the time summer,” began the lesser, about to give reminiscences.
“Haw!” snorted the big brother. “You’re only five. What do you know! God never leaves it summer. It just goes round and round, winter, summer, winter, summer. You’ll find that out.”
“If Dodo asked God to leave it summer, He would,” said Five.
“No, He wouldn’t.”
“For Dodo He would.”
“Dodo wouldn’t ask Him,” said Nine briefly.
“Why wouldn’t she?”
“For fear He wouldn’t,” said Nine. “But you don’t know about things like this. All you do is see the leaves fall down. Then comes winter. Wait and see.”
“Well,” said the small chap, “why does God go round and round like that? Why doesn’t He make it summer for a long, long time, and then winter for a long, long time?”
“Because,” said the elder, patiently, “God is just like Daddy. God is a man only very, very old. He is far older than granddad. He is older even than the world. Now you see daddy every morning. What does he do? He gets up, he goes downstairs and turns on the heater. Then he comes up and shaves.”
“First he looks in at me,” said Five.
“All right, but listen. This is how God is. Daddy shaves, and he stands there in front of the mirrow, putting powder on his chin, and he brushes his hair over and over, and puts on a clean shirt and then he goes in to mother’s room and says, ‘How do I look?'”
“He says,” cried Five, “’How does the old man look?’”
“Sometimes he says that,” proceeded Nine. “But anyway, he looks all fresh and shiny and his hair is wet and curls on the front. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” said Nine, “he goes to work. And when he comes home, how does he look?”
“At me,” said Five.
“But how does he look? He isn’t shiny any more. His hair isn’t smooth. If he scrapes you, he has whiskers, even little ones. He doesn’t jump around. He just goes and sits down. Doesn’t he?”
“I sit on his knee,” said the small chap.
“Oh, you aren’t listening!” cries the elder impatiently. “Listen, will you? I am telling about God.”
“All right.”
“Well, God is the same way as daddy. Daddy has to shave all over again, every morning. He goes to work, and then he comes home all tired. God gets tired. He makes the world all beautiful and shining, with green leaves and grass and flowers.”
“And gym shirts,” said Five.
“Don’t talk!” commands Nine sharply. “And the world is lovely and new, like daddy in the morning.”
“Does God shave?” asked Five.
Nine favors him with a long, grim stare. Five looks abashed.
“But after a while,” continues the elder, “the world gets all used, the grass is used, the trees are used, the flowers get tired and lean over. So God just lets everything go. He just lets the leaves fall off, the grass turn brown, the flowers die, and He lets the winter come, so that He can get up in the morning and start all over again.”
Five had not been entirely attentive. He was only half watching the oak leaves fall. But Nine was carried away by his own philosophy.
“Every day,” he mused, “daddy tries to make himself all new. But every day he comes back and he didn’t stay new. Every year God makes the world new, but it doesn’t stay. So He just lets it go and starts again the next morning.”
“When will it be morning?” asked Five.
“After the winter is gone.”
“And do we go to bed now until the morning?” asked Five.
“Yes, and miss Santa Claus?” demanded Nine with a knowing smile. “And miss hockey in the back yard, and sleigh riding out at Lambton, and snow men and forts?”
“We could do that,” said Five.
“While we sleep all winter?” cried Nine.
“We could be dreaming,” said Five.
Whereupon he abandoned his philosophic brother and dashed down from the steps to get another acorn that had fallen.
Editor’s Note: The nine year old is Murray Clark, while the five year old is Greg Clark Jr. Daughter Elizabeth had not been born yet.
Leave a Reply