Although Frankie was a merry, thoughtless little fellow, his mother’s story about keeping the Sabbath made such a deep impression upon his mind that the next Sunday morning his first thought on waking was as to how he should spend the day. There seemed to be a great many hours from dawn till dark, and he sighed half aloud as he thought of the smooth crust of snow and the snow-man left unfinished the day before.
Aleck was awake, and, hearing the sigh, asked what was the matter. “Oh, I was just thinking, Aleck,” was the reply, “how long it will be before Monday. Don’t it seem ever so long to you? I wish you could go to church with mamma and me. It’s nice to hear them sing, but I get sleepy when the minister talks. Didn’t you ever go to church?”
“Yes, but I canna remember about it very well. It was before I was lame. But I am sure I wad like to gang to the kirk,” said Aleck.
“What made you lame?” Frankie asked, for the first time seeming to realize that his patient playmate had not always been a cripple.
“I fell down the stairs i’ the paper-mill where my mither was. It hurt my back some way.”
“Won’t you get well some time?” asked Frankie, earnestly.
“I dinna ken, but I’m thinkin’ ’twill nae be lang till I gang to my mither.”
“O Aleck,” and Frankie put his arms about his neck, “you mean you’re going to die, and you mustn’t. You’d have to be put way down in the ground.”
“Only my body, Frankie. My soul would be wi’ God and my mither. And oh! it is sic a bonny place, and Sunday a’ the time. Then I wi’ be free frae pain.”
“Can everybody go there, Aleck? Am I going too, and mamma, and my papa that’s way off in California?”