So a boulder crushed the life and the pitiful boasting out of him. We felt sad, because Loudmouth had always seemed so much a waif, so forlorn. The others might die beneath the falling trees—the “widow-makers” as we called them—and no one would feel melancholy. But with Loudmouth, it did not seem fair. Loudmouth never seemed really to be involved in the war, he seemed more spectator than participant. And that was how he died, as though a foul ball had risen from behind home plate and brained him. He sat beside his hammock and a boulder blotted him out.
