Officially there were game
seasons to be observed. But the close season for deer sat lightly on
men in a region three days' journey from a butcher shop. They shot
deer when they needed meat. The law of necessity overrode the legal
pronouncement in this matter of food, as it often did in other ways.
While Hollister, having duly pleased Lawanne's China-boy by this
quarter of venison, sat talking to Lawanne, Charlie Mills came in to
return a book.
"Did you get anything out of that?" Lawanne asked.
"I got a bad taste in my mouth," Mills replied. "It reads like things
that happen. It's too blamed true to be pleasant. A man shouldn't be
like that, he shouldn't think too much--especially about other people.
He ought to be like a bull--go around snorting and pawing up the earth
till he gets his belly full, and then lie down and chew his cud."
Lawanne smiled.
"You've hit on something, Mills," he said. "The man who thinks the
least and acts the most is the happy man, the contented man, because
he's nearly always pleased with himself. If he fails at anything he
can usually excuse himself on the grounds of somebody else's
damnfoolishness.
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