"Asleep?" from Aunt Cordelia. "No?"
Emmy Lou in Aunt Cordelia's lap was amazed to hear these things. "Thy gardens and Thy goodly walks!" Hitherto she had been afraid of heaven! And afraid of God!
Aunt Cordelia hearing about it was shocked. Truly shocked and no less dismayed at how to remedy it, if Emmy Lou had but known it.
"Afraid of God? Why, Emmy Lou! He is our Father to go to, just as you run to meet Papa." Aunt Cordelia, gaining heart, took fresh courage. "God is everybody's Father, just as Heaven is our home."
The Aunt Cordelias may generalize, but the Emmy Lous will particularize.
"Izzy's father? And Sister's father? And Minnie's?"
Israel Judah lived next door, little colored Sister lived in the alley, and Minnie lived with the lady next door to Izzy.
"Their Father, and yours and mine and everyone's. Don't you think you can go to sleep now?"
Emmy Lou was positive she could not. God, of whom she had been afraid, is our Father!
Next door to Emmy Lou, at Izzy's, lives an old, old man. His brows are white and his beard falls on his breast. He smiles on Emmy Lou when she goes to his knee to speak to him, but he draws Izzy to him and kisses him. Aunt Katie calls him beautiful. Uncle Charlie calls him a glorious old patriarch. But Izzy's Mamma calls him father.