His pipe was out. He felt
rather like a log.
"But stopping growing isn't dying," she informed him sharply.
"Oh, no," he agreed lazily, "you're alive for a long time after that."
"_You_ stopped growing before I was born."
"And I'm not quite dead yet."
"Exactly," she said, "so daisies _are_ alive."
It was absurd to think of dozing at such a time. He rolled round
heavily and gazed at her through half-closed eyelids. "A daisy
breathes," he murmured, "and drinks and eats; sap circulates in its
little body. Probably it feels as well. Delicate threads like nerves
run through it everywhere. It knows when it is being picked or walked
on. Oh, yes, a daisy is alive all right enough." He sighed like a big
dog that has just shaken a fly off its nose and lies waiting for the
next attack. It came at once.
"But who knows it?" she asked. "I mean--there's no good in being alive
unless some one else knows it too!"
Then he sat up and stared at her. Judy, he remembered, knew a lot of
things she could tell to no one, not even to herself--and this seemed
one of them. The question was a startling one.
"An intellectual mystic at twelve!" he gasped.
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