"
"I am cold, Peter."
They blanketed him, although the room was warm. From where he lay
he could see the mice. He watched them for a moment. Poor Peter,
very humble, found himself wondering in how many ways he had been
remiss. To see this small soul launched into eternity without a
foreword, without a bit of light for the journey! Peter's
religion had been one of life and living, not of creed.
Marie, bringing jugs of hot water, bent over Peter.
"He knows, poor little one!" she whispered.
And so, indeed, it would seem. The boy, revived by a spoonful or
two of broth, asked to have the two tame mice on the bed. Peter,
opening the cage, found one dead, very stiff and stark. The
catastrophe he kept from the boy.
"One is sick, Jimmy boy," he said, and placed the mate, forlorn
and shivering, on the pillow. After a minute:--
"If the sick one dies will it go to heaven?"
"Yes, honey, I think so."
The boy was silent for a time. Thinking was easier than speech.
His mind too worked slowly. It was after a pause, while he lay
there with closed eyes, that Peter saw two tears slip from under
his long lashes. Peter bent over and wiped them away, a great
ache in his heart.
"What is it, dear?"
"I'm afraid--it's going to die!"
"Would that be so terrible, Jimmy boy?" asked Peter gently. "To
go to heaven, where there is no more death or dying, where it is
always summer and the sun always shines?"
No reply for a moment.
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