“Don’t you?” he said.
And then he lay back on his cushion and was still, as if he were thinking. And there was quite a long silence. Perhaps they were both of them thinking strange things children do not usually think of.
“I like the grand doctor from London, because he made them take the iron thing off,” said Mary at last. “Did he say you were going to die?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t whisper,” Colin answered. “Perhaps he knew I hated whispering. I heard him say one thing quite aloud. He said, ‘The lad might live if he would make up his mind to it. Put him in the humor.’ It sounded as if he was in a temper.”
“I’ll tell you who would put you in the humor, perhaps,” said Mary reflecting. She felt as if she would like this thing to be settled one way or the other. “I believe Dickon would. He’s always talking about live things. He never talks about dead things or things that are ill. He’s always looking up in the sky to watch birds flying—or looking down at the earth to see something growing. He has such round blue eyes and they are so wide open with looking about. And he laughs such a big laugh with his wide mouth—and his cheeks are as red—as red as cherries.”
She pulled her stool nearer to the sofa and her expression quite changed at the remembrance of the wide curving mouth and wide open eyes.
“See here,” she said. “Don’t let us talk about dying; I don’t like it. Let us talk about living. Let us talk and talk about Dickon. And then we will look at your pictures.”
It was the best thing she could have said. To talk about Dickon meant to talk about the moor and about the cottage and the fourteen people who