“The poor man you mean,” said Mrs. Burton, “was very sick and very poor, so that he had to be fed with the scraps that a rich man named Dives left at his own table. But the Lord saw him and knew what troubles he was having, and determined that the poor man should be happy after he died, to make up for the trouble he had when he was alive. So when poor Lazarus died the Lord took him right into heaven.”
“Nobody has to eat table-scraps there, do they?” said Budge. “But say, Aunt Alice, what do they do in heaven with things that’ left at the table? Isn’t it wicked to throw them away up there?”
“Should fink they’d cut a hole in the floor of hebben an’ grop de scraps down froo, for poor people,” said Toddie. “When I gets to be an andzel, an’ gets done my dinners, I’m goin’ to get up on the wall an’ froe the rest over down into the world. Only I must be careful not to grop off myself an’ tumble into the wylde again.”
“What I want to know is,” said Budge, “how do they get things to eat for the angels? Do they have grocery stores, an’ butcher shops, an’ milk wagons up there?”
“Gracious, no!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, her fingers instinctively moving toward her ears. “The Lord provides food in some way that we don’t understand. But this poor Lazarus, after he became an angel, looked out of heaven, and saw, away off in the bad place, the rich man whose leavings he used to eat, for the rich man had died too. And the rich man begged Abraham——”
“I fought his name was Lazharus?” said Toddie.
“The poor man was named Lazarus,” said Mrs. Burton; “but when he reached heaven he found good old Abraham there, and Abraham took care of him. And the rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus just to dip his finger in water and rub it on the rich man’ lips, for he was so thirsty.”
“Why didn’t he get a drink for himself?” asked Budge. “Can’t rich people wait on themselves even when they die?”
“There is no water in the bad place,” said Mrs. Burton. “That was why he was so thirsty.”
“Goodnesh!” said Toddie. “How does little boysh make mud-pies there?”