Only five folk as tha likes? he said. Who is th other four?
Your mother and Martha, Mary checked them off on her fingers, and
the robin and Ben Weatherstaff.
Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle the sound by putting
his arm over his mouth.
I know tha thinks I m a queer lad, he said, but I think tha art
th queerest little lass I ever saw.
Then Mary did a strange thing. She leaned forward and asked him a
question she had never dreamed of asking anyone before. And she tried
to ask it in Yorkshire because that was his language, and in India a
native was always pleased if you knew his speech.
Does tha like me? she said.
Eh! he answered heartily, that I does. I likes thee wonderful, an
so does th robin, I do believe!
That s two, then, said Mary. That s two for me.
And then they began to work harder than ever and more joyfully. Mary
was startled and sorry when she heard the big clock in the courtyard
strike the hour of her midday dinner.
I shall have to go, she said mournfully. And you will have to go
too, won t you?
Dickon grinned.
My dinner s easy to carry about with me, he said. Mother always lets
me put a bit o somethin in my pocket.
He picked up his coat from the grass and brought out of a pocket a
lumpy little bundle tied up in a quite clean, coarse, blue and white
handkerchief. It held two thick pieces of bread with a slice of
something laid between them.
87