“One is sick, Jimmy boy,” he said, and placed the mate, forlorn and shivering, on the pillow. After a minute:—
“If the sick one dies will it go to heaven?”
“Yes, honey, I think so.”
The boy was silent for a time. Thinking was easier than speech. His mind too worked slowly. It was after a pause, while he lay there with closed eyes, that Peter saw two tears slip from under his long lashes. Peter bent over and wiped them away, a great ache in his heart.
“What is it, dear?”
“I'm afraid—it's going to die!”
“Would that be so terrible, Jimmy boy?” asked Peter gently. “To go to heaven, where there is no more death or dying, where it is always summer and the sun always shines?”
No reply for a moment. The little mouse sat up on the pillow and rubbed its nose with a pinkish paw. The baby mice in the cage nuzzled their dead mother.
“Is there grass?”
“Yes—soft green grass.”