not like that but-but it does stay on. Specially when it’s someone very strong, very vital, who hasn’t been worn down by old age, or a long illness or something.”
“That’s exactly it,” Andrew said. “Something that comes out whole, because it’s so quick.”
“Why they’re as old as the hills, those old beliefs.”
“I should imagine they’re as old as life and death,” Andrew said.
“The thing I mean is, they aren’t taken straight to God,” Hannah said. “They’ve had such violence done them, such a shock, it takes a while to get their wits together.”
“That’s why it took him so long to come,” Mary said. “As if his very soul had been struck unconscious.”
“I should think maybe.”
“And above all with someone like Jay, young, and with children and a wife, and not even dreaming of such a thing coming on him, no time to adjust his mind and feelings, or prepare for it.”
“That’s just it,” Andrew said; Hannah nodded.
"Why he’d feel,’I'm worried. This came too fast without warning. There are all kinds of things I’ve got to tend to. I can’t just leave them like this.’Wouldn’t he! And that’s just how he was, how we felt he was. So anxious. So awfully concerned, and disturbed. Why yes, it’s just exactly the way it was!
“And only when they feel convinced you know they care, and everything’s going to be taken good care of, just the very best possible, it’s only then they can stop being anxious and begin to rest.”
They nodded and for a minute they were all quiet.
Then Mary said tenderly, "How awful, pitiful, beyond words it must be, to be so terribly anxious for others, for others’good, and not be able to do anything, even to say so. Not even to help. Poor things.
