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 lived in it on sixteen shillings a week and the children who got
fat on the moor grass like the wild ponies. And about Dickon s
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