“Can you, please, tell me whose garden this is?”
Now it is an easy thing to take off a tam-o’-shanter, but when you try to put it on again it has a shabby way of curling up and sitting on the top of your head so insecurely that it topples off again directly. Pussy generally put Bunchy’s on again for him, and as she wasn’t there he left the matter alone and held it in his hand. The man started a little as Bunchy spoke, then he said slowly:
“I think it is God’s garden.”
Bunchy was not surprised. He felt that he knew God very well indeed. When you say prayers morning and evening, and know that there is a benevolent Somebody somewhere, who gives you your home, and your parents, and your little white bed, who likes you to be truthful and courteous, and to have clean hands at meals, it is quite natural to hear that this benevolent Person has a garden. All nice people ought to have gardens, so Bunchy said:
“Why does God have so many little rockeries in His garden? Why are there all these stones, and figures, and little mounds?”
“When people die they are buried in this garden, and their friends put up the crosses and stones——”
“And angels?” interrupted Bunchy admiringly; and as he looked up in the man’s face he noticed that his eyes were very kind, but that there were big black shadows round them, and their lids looked red and heavy.
“They put up the crosses, and stones, and angels to show where their friends are sleeping,” continued the tall man.
“Then it’s a funeral,” said Bunchy solemnly, and there was silence.
The man looked sorrier than ever, and Bunchy felt that now was the time to talk of something else, so he said: