Recently on reddit someone asked who the character is that makes you sad. There are a lot of characters that I could think of but the one that came to my mind is Pangle from my favorite book, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.

The book is about Inman trying to get home through the losing south during the last days of the Civil War. He is amongst a group of people called outliers who are hiding from the home guard. One of the outliers is Stobrod, a violinist who after playing a little girl out has no longer been able to focus on the war. He runs into Pangle while hiding in a cave on Cold Mountain.

Pangle was run off his family’s property for being “simple-minded” and he hid in the mountains. He discovered a group of other outliers in his cave and was happy to see them. He fell in love with Stobrod’s music and during a raid on a farmer’s house, Stobrod stole a banjo. Pangle took to the banjo easily and the two became a duo. Even before that, Pangle would curl up next to Stobrod to sleep no matter how many times Stobrod shoved him away. In Stobrod’s words, all Pangle wanted was warmth and music.

The tragedy of Pangle comes when him and Stobrod are discovered by the Home Guard, the group meant to find outliers. They listen to the two play some music with only Stobrod realizing that they’re about to get killed. When the guard tells them to get up against a tree, Pangle throws his arm over Stobrod’s shoulders like they’re getting their picture taken. He won’t stop smiling so the guard tells him to put his hat over his face. He does so and they’re killed.

It’s pretty obvious that Pangle represents the kindness and innocence of people in the face of war. His murder is one of several dozen in this book. But this one always stuck out to me due to its unfairness and tragedy. He didn’t have any involvement in this, the war and its consequences came to him. He could have lived for a long time on that mountain.

Due to their mental state, I’m reminded of Lenny from Of Mice and Men. But the sorrow in Lenny is that a friend did it to him to be kind. Knowing that the fate that he would receive at the hands of the land owner would be far worse. These bastards did it just out of meanness.

Ada and Ruby(Stobrod’s daughter) come up the mountain to bury him and Pangle when they find Stobrod alive. When he’s going back down the mountain, Inman points out where they buried Pangle, Stobrod says “if God was to set out killing every men based on their demerits, that boy would make up the hind end of the line”.

When I read that line, I thought of it as a good way to live. Not with the threat of death from an overseeing God but to continue to show that kind of kindness throughout my life. It would be a nice thing to do.