ful name,
nor did he ever address the other by the one the dead mother had affixed
to him, miscalling him by a number of titles, among which were
Sputterboy, Gig, Doctor, and Bill.

Before ascending quite to the Whipple New Place they left the dusty road
for a path that led over a lawnlike stretch of upland, starred with
buttercups and tiny anemones, and inhabited by a colony of gophers that
instantly engaged Frank, the dog, now free of his leash, in futile
dashes. They stood erect, with languidly drooped paws, until he was too
near; then they were inexplicably not there. Frank at length divined
that they unfairly achieved these disappearances by descending into
caverns beneath the surface of the earth. At first, with frantic claws
and eager squeals, he tore at the entrances to these until the prey
appeared at exits farther on, only to repeat the disappearance when
dashed at. Frank presently saw the chase to be hopeless. It was no good
digging for something that wouldn't be there.

"There's life for you, Doctor," said Dave Cowan. "Life has to live on
life, humans same as dogs. Life is something that keeps tearing itself
down and building itself up again; everybody killing something else and
eating it. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, sir," said Wilbur, believing he did. Dogs killed gophers if they
caught them, and human beings killed chickens for Sunday dinners.

"Humans are the best killers of all," said Dave. "That's the reason
they came up from monkeys, and got civilized so they wear neckties and
have religion and post offices and all such."

"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.

They climbed to a green height and reclined on the cool sward in the
shade of a beech tree. Here they could pick out the winding of the quick
little river between its green banks far below, and look across the
roofs of slumbrous Newbern. The Wilbur twin could almost pick out the
Penniman house. Then he looked up, and low in the sky he surprisingly
beheld the moon, an orb of pale bronze dulled from its night shine.
Never before had he seen the moon by day. He had supposed it was in the
sky only at night. So his father lectured now on astronomy and the
cosmos. It seemed that the moon was always there, or about there, a
lonesome old thing, because there was no life on it. Dave spoke
learnedly, for his Sunday paper had devoted a page to something of this
sort.

"Everything is electricity or something," said Dave, "and it crackles
and works on itself