Don said he did not know. He objected that he did not wish to write himself up—his own experiences.
"Why not?"
"I don't know."
The fact was—as Pittsey slowly learned—Don had an obstinate delicacy that shrank from putting any of his own emotions into print. He could not look into his heart and write, as the poet directed. He wrote, as he would talk to a stranger, in generalities, "in twaddle" as Pittsey complained, with a masculine reticence in all things that concerned himself.
"Well, go ahead," Pittsey said, at last. "Do it your own way."
He went ahead for three weeks, without a glimmer of encouragement and really without a chance of success. And then he confessed, blushing: "Anyway, I don't see the use of writing stuff like this. I don't see why anyone should care to read it. It doesn't really mean anything to anybody, does it?"
"It's one way of earning a living," Pittsey countered.
"I know, but—well, if a man's really working, if he's only sawing wood or cleaning the streets or driving a waggon, he's doing something that has to be done. He's helping things along—the world, you know—civilization. He's"
Pittsey interrupted him with high laughter. "Well, you are a joke! You're the funniest ever! Let the world get along any way it pleases. It's your getting along that concerns you."
"Yes, I know," Don mumbled, "but—I don't care. It doesn't seem worth while to me."
