How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Our first war deaths did not come until the fall of 1943, but then there were three at once when three island boys who had signed aboard the same ship were lost off a tiny island in the South Pacific that none of us had ever heard of before.
I did not pray anymore. I had even stopped going to church […] I did not miss church, but sometimes I wished I might pray. I wanted, oddly enough, to pray for Call. I was so afraid he might die in some alien ocean thousands of miles from home. (15.39-40)
Death comes to Rass Island. Now, things are getting real. People that Louise knows are dying, and she's afraid that the same fate might befall Call. She can't quite figure out why she cares so much, but we know—it's because you never forget about your first best friend.
Quote #8
"Old Trudy died," she said after a while. Neither the Captain nor I replied to this. "Everybody dies," she said sadly.
"Yes, they do," he answered.
"I fear the water will get my coffin," she said. "I hate the water."
"You got some good years to go yet, Miss Louise."
She grinned at him saucily. "Longer than you anyway. I guess you wish now you was young as me, eh, Hiram Wallace?" (17.47-51)
Poor Grandma. The old lady who's constantly spewing fire and brimstone at everyone else is afraid to die and get water in her coffin. It makes sense in a way because Grandma is always panicking about the devil and damnation. Maybe she fears what waits for her on the other side, too?
Quote #9
"It's so good to be old," he said. "Youth is a mortal wound."
"What's he talking about, Wheeze? I don't know what he's saying."
He put down his roll and reached over and took her gnarled hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb. "I'm trying to tell the child something only you and I can understand. How good it is to be old."
I watched her face go from being startled by his gesture to being pleased that he had somehow joined her side against me. Then she seemed to remember. She drew back her hand. "We'll die," she said.
"Yes," he said. "But we'll be ready. The young ones never are." (17.61-65)
The Captain has it right here: age has its virtues. Grandma may not think getting old and dying is all it's cracked up to be, but the Captain knows that wisdom comes with age—and the wise accept death when it comes knocking.