and if he caught me idle , staring dreamily into the ether or looking at the life forms that abounded beneath me -- every ant walking around a leaf as though it were a boulder , making one question what he himself calls a boulder and all his other nomenclature for every natural thing , and each creature fixated on itself and unaware that it in response to its environment is merely a speck in the perspective of something much greater -- he would slap the suck-calf numerous times with only the threat of stop crying or i will give you something to cry about a restraint on the vile and the lugubrious .