He looked down. Then he smiled into the level eyes. “I’m drawing a map,” he said.
She found a chair and pushed it to the table. She climbed into it and knelt with her fat arms folded in front of her on the table, bending toward the paper.
Simeon paid no heed to her. The pencil went its absent-minded way.
It was no unusual thing for them to be silent a long while, with an occasional smile or nod between them, she intent on grave matters, Simeon following hazy, wavering thoughts.
But he had never chosen to make pictures. This was something important and different. She leaned closer, her shoulder touching his. “Is that a pig?” she asked politely. Her finger indicated a shape in one corner.
“That is a mountain,” said Simeon. He sketched in a tree or two to verify it.
“It ’s a funny mountain,” she said. She drew in her breath a little, watching the pencil respectfully.
“It is full of beautiful things,” said Simeon.
She bent closer to examine it. “Can you see them?” She lifted serious eyes to his.
“Yes, I see them—very plain. There is iron and copper and lead—” his pencil touched the paper, here and there, in little dots, “and silver.”