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“And then?”

“Why, yes. Then we fought each other, you know.”

A silence followed this remark. Since Uncle Isaac said nothing, Johnny continued:

“I beat, too! My, what a thrashing I gave him! Now they’ll know I am the strongest. I’d rather be strong than anything else.”

Again it was very still.

“You say that, do you, John? You think that to be strong is the greatest thing? Possibly it was, in past ages; but in the future, the man with the most love in his heart, the best man, will be the greatest. Remember that, little John Blossom.”

The boy looked at his uncle in astonishment. The man with the most love in his heart the best man? He the greatest of all?

“Yes,” continued Uncle Isaac. “He who heals instead of wounds, he who does good and helps the needy, he is the greatest, John Blossom.”

Heals and not wounds; does good; helps the needy. Johnny sat staring at his Uncle Isaac. Deep within his heart there lay a weight, a sadness. It was the thought of Tellef Olsen’s fishing rod that he had broken to smithereens—Tellef’s, who had to go fishing every day or his mother and the children would have nothing to eat; and of the jacket all split, too,—the only one Tellef had.