VIII

Days, months and years went by and with each moment of them, Mary gave out of herself the light of her ideals for that green bough to grow in.

Still as ever, she continued with her work on the farm, one indeed of them now, and when he could walk, took John with her to fetch the cows, exacting patience from him while he sat there in the stalls beside her watching her milk.

"We have to work, John," she said. "You and I have to work. I shall never disturb you when you're plowing or dropping the seeds in the ground. Work's a holy thing, John. Do you know that? You wouldn't come and disturb me while I was saying my prayers, would you?"

Solemnly John shook his head. He knew too well he always held his breath, because then she had told him G.o.d was in the room.

"Is G.o.d in the shed here now, while you're milking?" he asked.

She nodded an affirmative to give him the impression that so close G.o.d was she dared not speak aloud.

"Does He get thirsty when He sees all that milk in the pail?"

She bit her lips from laughter and shook her head again. That was a moment when many a mother would have taken him in her arms for the charm he had. She would not spoil him so. She would not let him think he said quaint things and so for quaintness' sake or the attention he won by them, set out his childish wits to gain approval. Nothing should he wish to gain. All that he gave of himself he must give without thought of its reward.

"G.o.d's never hungry or thirsty, except through us," she said. "G.o.d is in pain when we're in pain. He's happy when we're happy. Everything we feel is what G.o.d is feeling because He's everywhere and close to all of us."

John's eyes cast downwards to the bucket where the milk was frothing white.

"He's feeling thirsty now then," said he meditatively.

"I've no doubt He is," said Mary. "But He knows the milk doesn't belong to Him. He knows the milk belongs to Mr. Peverell and Mrs. Peverell will give Him some at tea-time."

For a long while John thought over this. The milk hissed into the pail as Mary watched him with her cheek against the still, warm flank.

"What is it, John?" she asked presently. "What are you thinking?"

"I feel so sorry for G.o.d," said he.

"Always feel that," she whispered, seizing eagerly the odd turn of his mind. "He wants your pity as well as your love, little John. He wants the best you have. He's always in you. He's never far away. And if sometimes it seems that He is, then come and give your best to me. I promise you I'll give it back to Him."

Tenderly, by his heart she led him, bringing him ever on tiptoe to every wonder in life, whilst all in Nature he found wonderful through her eyes. Supplying herself with everything in literature she could find on subjects of natural history, recalling thereby such memories as she had of bird's nesting and woodland adventures with her brother, it was these books she read now. They held her interest as never a storybook had held it those days in Bridnorth when the old coach rumbled up the cobbled street. John caught the vital energy of her excitement whenever in the fields and hedges she discovered the very doc.u.ments of Nature she had read of on the printed page.

No eggs were allowed to be taken from the nests. No collection of things was made.

"They're all ours where they are," she would say. "Men who study these things to write about them in the books I read, they're the only ones who can take them. They give them all back again in their books."

He did not understand this, but learnt obedience.

Time came when he himself could climb a tree and peer within a nest.

Down on the ground below, Mary would stand with heart dry on her lips, yet bidding him no more than care of the places where he put his feet.

Never should he know fear, she determined, never through her.

So she brought him up and to the life of the farm as well. With Mr.

Peverell he spent many of his days. In the hayfields and at harvest time, the measure of his joys was full. He knew the scent of good hay from bad before ever he could handle a rake to gather it. He saw the crops thrashed. He saw them sown. In all the procession of those years, the coming and going, the sowing and harvest, the receiving and the giving of life became the statutory values of his world.

And there beside him, ever at his listening ear, was Mary to give him the simple purpose of his young ideals.

He never knew he learnt. He never realized the soil he grew in. Up to the light he came, the light she gave him from the emotion of her own ideals; up to the light like a sapling tree, well planted in the wood, with s.p.a.ce and air to stretch its branches to the sun.

"Mummy, what's death?" he asked her one day as he sat with her while she milked the cows. "What's death?"

For a long time she continued with her milking in silence. She had taught him never to bother for an answer to his questions and only to ask again when he made sure his question had not been heard. Now he leant up against the stall waiting in patience, watching her face.

Peeping at her then when making sure she had not heard, he asked once more.

"Mummy, what's death? Is that too soon?"

She smiled and pressed his hand with her own that was warm and wet with milk.

"Why do you ask that, John?" she inquired.

"There were two moles got chopped with the hay knives. I saw them.

They were lying in a lump and all b.l.o.o.d.y and still. Is that death? Mr.

Peverell said they was quite dead. Is death being quite dead?"

She shook her head and went back to her milking; still for a while in silence.

These were moments she feared, yet had no real dread of, seeing they had to be. Here was a young twig seeking to the light, a young twig that one day would become a branch and must be set in surest purpose or in the full growth, sooner or later, would reveal its stunted lines and the need there had been for vision in its training.

"Death's not the same as being dead," she said presently. "Nothing is quite dead." She stripped her cow, the last that evening and, putting the pail aside from long habits of precaution, she turned and took both his hands in hers.

"Do you know what a difficult question you've asked me, John?" she said.

He shook his head.

"You have, and awfully badly I want to answer it. I could quite easily if you were a little bit older. I'm so afraid I can't make it simple enough for you to understand now. And if I told you something you didn't understand, you'd make your own understanding of it and it might be all wrong."

"Only want to know about the moles," said he.

"Yes, I know. But what's happened to the moles happens to people."

"When?"

"Oh, all sorts of times. They get caught in the mowing knives."

"But can't they tie themselves up with bits of rag and make it all right and stop the blooding?"

"Not when it cuts into their hearts, they can't. Even a whole tablecloth couldn't stop the bleeding then."

"What happens then?"

"They get all still like the moles."