CRICKET'S DISCOVERY.
Old Billy sat in the front yard, under a big tree, telling stories to the twins. Perhaps I should say telling a story, for Billy's range was limited to a single tale, and when he had told this, if any child wanted more, he simply had to tell it over again. It was a story with a moral, and was drawn from Billy's own experience. It was about a bad little boy, who ate up all his sister's pep'mint drops. This was the worst of crimes, in Billy's eyes, for to him pep'mint drops were a sacred possession, not even to be lightly referred to.
"His marmer," went on Billy, impressively, "kep' a-whippin' him, an' a-whippin' him, but it warn't no kind o' use, an' didn't do a mite o' good. And just think, children," finished Billy, solemnly, "when that bad, naughty, selfish little boy died, he couldn't go to Heaven and be a good little angel, but he had to go to the Bad Place."
The children listened with wide-open eyes.
"Where is the Bad Place, Billy?" questioned Zaidee, looking interestedly up into Billy's face.
Billy looked slowly all about him, and above him, and then at the ground, puzzled, now, what to say. He was not very clear, himself. He looked again at the blue sky, flecked with soft, white clouds.
"Wal, I think, children," he said, in his slow way, "that Heaven is up there where all them little bright specks is at night. I guess them's holes in the floor. Can't see 'em daytimes, you know, when the lights are out, up above. 'N' I ruther guess t'other place is down under there, pointing to the ground."
Helen jumped.
"Oh, I don't want it right under our foots. The ground might crack, Billy, and we'd fall in. Please don't say it's there," she begged, earnestly.
But Zaidee immediately began to poke the ground with great interest, and stamp hard upon it.