Most mothers would have sought to soothe the child, their own hearts breaking the while, with the assurance that no one should put him into any hole, or anywhere he did not want to go. But this mother could not lie in the face of death, nor had it ever occurred to her that no _person_ is ever put into a hole, though many a body. Before she could answer, a third time came the cry, this time in despairing though suppressed agony,-- "Mother, don't let them put me in a hole." The mother gave a cry like the child's, and her heart within her became like water. "Oh, God!" she gasped, and could say no more. But with the prayer--for what is a prayer but a calling on the name of the Lord?--came to her a little calm, and she was able to speak. She bent over him and kissed his forehead. "My darling Moxy, mother loves you," she said. What that had to do with it she did not ask herself. The child looked up in her face with dim eyes. "Pray to the heavenly father, Moxy," she went on--and there stopped, thinking what she should tell him to ask for. "Tell him," she resumed, "that you don't want to be put in a hole, and tell him that mother does not want you to be put in a hole, for she loves you with all her heart." "Don't put me in the hole," said Moxy, now using the definite article. "Jesus Christ was put in the hole," said the voice of the next elder boy from behind his mother. He had come in softly, and she had neither seen nor heard him. It was Sunday, and he had strolled into a church or meeting-house--does it matter which?--and had heard the wonderful story of hope. It was remarkable though that he had taken it up as he did, for he went on to add, "but he didn't mind it much, and soon got out again." "Ah, yes, Moxy!" said the poor mother, "Jesus died for our sins, and you must ask him to take you up to heaven." But Moxy did not know anything about sins, and just as little about heaven. What he wanted was an assurance that he would not be put in the hole. And the mother, now a little calmer, thought she saw what she ought to say. "It ain't your soul, it's only your body, Moxy, they put in the hole," she said. "I don't want to be put in the hole," Moxy almost screamed. "I don't want my head cut off!" The poor mother was at her wits' end. But here the child fell into a troubled sleep, and for some hours a silence as of the grave filled the dreary cellar. The moment he woke the same cry came from his fevered lips, "Don't put me in the hole," and at intervals, growing longer as he grew weaker, the cry came all the day. CHAPTER XLIII. DELIVERANCE.