"Only looking at the ghosts, ma," I answered. "There's such a lot of 'em
down there." Then I added, musingly, "I wonder what it feels like to be
a ghost."
My mother said nothing, but took me up in her arms, and carried me back
to bed, and then, sitting down beside me, and holding my hand in
hers--there was not so very much difference in the size--began to sing in
that low, caressing voice of hers that always made me feel, for the time
being, that I wanted to be a good boy, a song she often used to sing to
me, and that I have never heard any one else sing since, and should not
care to.
But while she sang, something fell on my hand that caused me to sit up
and insist on examining her eyes. She laughed; rather a strange, broken
little laugh, I thought, and said it was nothing, and told me to lie
still and go to sleep. So I wriggled down again and shut my eyes tight,
but I could not understand what had made her cry.
Poor little mother, she had a notion, founded evidently upon inborn
belief rather than upon observation, that all children were angels, and
that, in consequence, an altogether exceptional demand existed for them
in a certain other place, where there are more openings for angels,
rendering their retention in this world difficult and undependable.
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