"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 God," 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 documents 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.