CHAPTER XI 94
" 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 any one 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 quiet clean, coarse, blue and white handkerchief. It held two thick pieces of bread with a slice of something laid between them.