Pain should not depress us unduly , nor pleasure lure us into forgetfulness and sloth . All unknowingly he made me realize that I had been a bit of a coward and a shirker . I began to understand that my personal woes were not the most important things in the universe , even to myself . In short , Abel taught me to laugh again ; and when a man can laugh wholesomely things are not going too badly with him . That old garden was always such a cheery place . Even when the east wind sang in minor and the waves on the gray shore were sad , hints of sunshine seemed to be lurking all about it . Perhaps this was because there were so many yellow flowers in it . Tamzine liked yellow flowers . Captain Kidd , too , always paraded it in panoply of gold . He was so large and effulgent that one hardly missed the sun . Considering his presence I wondered that the garden was always so full of singing birds . But the Captain never meddled with them . Probably he understood that his master would not have tolerated it for a moment . So there was always a song or a chirp somewhere . Overhead flew the gulls and the cranes . The wind in the pines always made a glad salutation . Abel and I paced the walks , in high converse on matters beyond the ken of cat or king . `` I liked to ponder on all problems , though I can never solve them , '' Abel used to say . `` My father held that we should never talk of things we could n't understand . But , lord , master , if we did n't the subjects for conversation would be mighty few .
I reckon the gods laugh many a time XXXXX hear us , but what matter ?
In because for if into of on that to with