"She's a liar," said the woman, composedly, without resentment. "We'll cut the _planting_ out of _this_ funeral." Her ingenuity, her resourcefulness, her daring, when the happiness of her child was concerned, were usually sufficient to the emergency. "Why, darling!" she exclaimed. "Your father will be taken right up into the sky. He won't be put in no grave. He'll go right straight to a place where it's all sunshine--where it's all blue and high and as bright as day." She bustled about: keeping an eye alert for the effect of her promises. She was not yet sure how this glorious ascension might be managed; but she had never failed to deceive him to his own contentment, and 'twas not her habit to take fainthearted measures. "They been lying to you, dear," she complained. "Don't you fret about graves. You just wait," she concluded, significantly, "and see!" The boy sighed. "Poddle and me," she added, with a wag of the head to convince him, "will show you where your father goes." "I wish," the boy said, wistfully, "that he wasn't dead." "Don't you do it!" she flashed. "It don't make no difference to him. It's a good thing. I bet he's glad to be dead." The boy shook his head. "Yes, he is! Don't you think he isn't. There ain't nothing like being dead. Everybody's happy--when they're dead." "He's so still!" the boy whispered. "It feels fine to be still--like that." "And he's so cold!" "No!" she scorned. "He don't feel cold. You think he's cold. But he ain't. That's just what you _think_. He's comfortable. He's glad to be dead. Everybody's glad to be dead." The boy shuddered. "Don't you do that no more!" said the woman. "It don't hurt to be dead. Honest, it don't! It feels real good to be that way." "I--I--I don't think I'd like--to be dead!" "You don't have to if you don't want to," the woman replied, thrown into a confusion of pain and alarm. To comfort him, to shield him from agony, to keep the shadow of fear from falling upon him: she desired nothing more; and she was content to succeed if but for the moment. "I tell you," she continued, "you never will be dead--if you don't want to. Your father wanted to be dead. 'I think, Millie,' says he, 'I'd like to be dead.' 'All right, Dick,' says I. 'If you want to, I won't stand in your way. But I don't know about the boy.' 'Oh,' says he, 'the boy won't stand in my way.' 'I guess that's right, Dick,' says I, 'for the boy loves you.' And so," she concluded, "he died. But _you_ don't have to die. You'll never die--not unless you want to." She kissed him. "Don't you be afraid, dear!" she crooned. "I'm not--afraid." "Well, then," she asked, puzzled, "what _are_ you?" "I don't know," he faltered. "I think it makes me--sick at the--stomach." He had turned white. She took him in her arms, to comfort and hearten him--an unfailing device: her kisses, her warm, ample bosom, her close embrace; he was by these always consoled....