Seppi turned his eyes over towards the mountains, and Squib saw how pinched and thin his face had grown. He began to apprehend the meaning of the words, though he did not fully comprehend them.
“I think I shan’t be here in the spring to go with them,” said the lame boy quietly. “The doctor said last time that another cold would make an end of me. There’s been something wrong here,” touching his chest, “ever since I was all those hours in the ice-cave. Every winter they think it will be then; but I’m sure it’s coming now.”
Squib looked very much awed, but not afraid. The thought of death is not in itself terrible to children. Their hold upon life is not very strong, and their simple faith carries them over all perplexities and misgivings.
“Do you mean you will not get better?” he asked softly.
“I don’t think I can. I feel so very weak, and at night I can’t breathe, and I have to sit up and pant. I am best out on the mountains; but soon I can’t be there any longer. If it were not for mother and Ann-Katherin I think I should be glad. It isn’t good being weak and lame, and not able to do anything like other boys and men. In God’s garden it will not matter. I shall be like the others there.”
“God’s garden!” repeated Squib quickly.
“Yes; I once had a dream about being in God’s garden. I can’t explain how it was; but there was a beautiful garden with mountains all round it, and flowers growing everywhere. And I was one of them; and I knew that the others had been live people once, and had died and been taken there to rest and sleep until the resurrection. And we were all so happy. And presently a whisper ran through that the Lord was coming, and that we were to be ready for Him; and that made me so glad and happy that I awoke before He had come. But I always remember my dream; and once I told it to Herr Adler, and he told me that he knew many good men who had dreamed something very much the same. So when I think of being dead, I never feel as if I should be in a narrow grave in the cold and the dark, but be a flower in God’s garden, just waiting for the Lord to come.”
Squib’s eyes were bright with interest and sympathy.
“That was a nice dream,” he said. “I shall think about that often. I am glad you told it me.”
“I’m glad I’ve talked to you,” said Seppi. “I was feeling rather unhappy before you came, and now I am quite happy again. I think mother and Ann-Katherin would have missed me so if they had stayed always here; but if they go to another place, it will be quite different. They will have a lot of nice things to think of, and that will keep them happy.”