"Madame Lacara."
"She's a liar," said the woman, composedly, without resentment. "We'll cut the planting out of this funeral." Her ingenuity, her resourcefulness, her daring, when the happiness of her child was concerned, were usually sufficient to the emergency. "Why, darling!" she exclaimed. "Your father will be taken right up into the sky. He won't be put in no grave. He'll go right straight to a place where it's all sunshine—where it's all blue and high and as bright as day." She bustled about: keeping an eye alert for the effect of her promises. She was not yet sure how this glorious ascension might be managed; but she had never failed to deceive him to his own contentment, and 'twas not her habit to take fainthearted measures. "They been lying to you, dear," she complained. "Don't you fret about graves. You just wait," she concluded, significantly, "and see!"
The boy sighed.
"Poddle and me," she added, with a wag of the head to convince him, "will show you where your father goes."
"I wish," the boy said, wistfully, "that he wasn't dead."
"Don't you do it!" she flashed. "It don't make no difference to him. It's a good thing. I bet he's glad to be dead."
The boy shook his head.
"Yes, he is! Don't you think he isn't. There ain't nothing like being dead. Everybody's happy—when they're dead."
"He's so still!" the boy whispered.
"It feels fine to be still—like that."