Why couldn't he relax into a life such as they led, without all this talk of effort and planning?
It seemed to him that people pretty much allowed life to make itself for them, and lived it as it came.

He was not going to bother about it.

Let it come.
He would find a way to live it.

People managed.

Judge Penniman was never so ailing that he couldn't reach the harness shop for his game of checkers.