The boys laughed and lay back on the sand, and Grandfather sighed heavily. He had eaten too much, and, placing his hands on his stomach and interlocking his fingers, he continued his ramblings.
He muttered words that were clearly a quote: "Deadly systems vanish like foam. That's it, foam and vanishing. All the hard work that man has put into the planet has vanished like foam. He domesticated the useful animals, exterminated the violent ones, and cleared the earth of its wild plants. And then man himself left, and then the flood of primeval life came again, sweeping away and destroying all his works. Grass and forests have reclaimed his fields, wild animals have taken over his flocks, and now the wolves have arrived on Cliff House Beach." The thought terrified him, and he continued, "In this place where four million people once entertained themselves, wild wolves now roam, and our descendants are savages, defending themselves against clawed marauders with their primitive weapons. Imagine! And all this because of the 'scarlet plague'..."
The adjective caught Hair-lip's attention.
He said to Edwin, "He says that word a lot. What is scarlet?"
The old man quoted, "The scarlet in the maple trees shakes me like the blare of trumpets as they pass by."
Edwin answered his question, "I know it's red, and you don't because you're a Shofar. They never know anything, none of them know anything."
Hair-lip spoke impatiently, "But red is red, isn't it?" Why should you be so clever and call it scarlet?
"Why do you talk so much about things that no one knows, Grandpa?" he asked Grandpa. "Scarlet is nothing, but red is red; so why not say red?"
"Red isn't the right word," came the reply. "The plague was scarlet; the whole face and body would turn scarlet in an hour. You think I don't know? You think I haven't seen enough of it? And I tell you it's scarlet because… well, because it was scarlet; there's no other word for it."
"Red," muttered Hair-lip stubbornly, "is the right word, I think. Father calls red red, and he must know too. He says everyone died of the 'Red Plague.'"