“A heart at leisure from itself
To soothe and sympathise.”
Poppet and Peter were discussing many things in general and the mystery of life in particular. They were sitting crouched up together in an old tank that had been cast out in the first paddock because it leaked. It was after tea, and [Poppet had] a little dead chicken in her hand that she had picked up in the garden.
“Ith got wheelth inthide it, and when they thop ith deaded,” Peter was saying,—“thust like my thteam engine, thath what tith.”
“I think being alive is very funny,” Poppet said, looking earnestly at the little lifeless body. “All those chickies was eggs, and then sud’nly they begin running about and enjoying themselves, and then sud’nly they tumble down dead, and even the doctor can’t make them run again.”
[21]
]“Yeth,” said Peter, his eyes very thoughtful as he tried to grasp great things. “Prapth you might tumble down like that, Poppet; all your wheelth might thtop.”
“Or yours,” urged Poppet. Death was in her hand. She did not like to feel that ever her active little body could lie like this fluffy, silent one, and so made the likelihood more general.
“Yeth,” said Peter; “and oneth, Poppet, I nearly wath deaded, and Judy thaved me.”
“You don’t remember,” Poppet said, in a voice of great scorn. “You was only a little, tiny baby, just beginning to walk, Peter. But I was there, and remember everything.”
“You wath athleep, Poppet,” Peter objected,—Poppet’s air of superiority irritated him. “Meg told me about it when I had the meathleth, and the thaid that you wath athleep, tho there!”