"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.