And I'd say, “When you are good enough.”
And he'd say, “If I was good enough, could I see Him now?”
And I would say, “Yes.”
And then he would tell me that he would try to be good; and I would say, “Wall, so do.”
And late one afternoon, a bright, sunny afternoon, he got tired of playin'. He had been a horse, and little Let Peedick had been a drivin' him. I had heard 'em a whinnerin' out in the yard, and a prancin', and a hitchin' each other to the post.
But he had got tired about sundown, and come in, and leaned up against my lap, and asked me about 88 questions about his ma and the City. He had never forgot what his uncle Josiah had read about it, and he couldn't seem to talk enough about it.
And says he, with a dreamy look way off into the glowin' western sky, “My mamma Cicely said it would swing right down out of heaven some day, and would open, and I could walk in; and don't you believe mamma will stand just inside of the gate as she used to, and say, 'Here comes my own little boy'?”