“Of whom are you thinking, my dear girl? and where do you want him to go?”
“I'm thinking about Dirk, ma'am; I thought about him all the evening; the man made me; and I've made up my mind; he's got to go to heaven!”
I suppose I cannot give you an idea of the force in her voice. It was as though a resolution, from which there could be no appeal, had been taken, and the person resolving felt her own power to accomplish. It was altogether an unexpected answer to Mrs. Roberts. She did not know whether to be half-frightened or to laugh.
She sat down in one of the easy-chairs to study the girl, and consider what answer to make. Mart, meantime, turned back to the survey of herself in the mirror, or to the survey of whatever she saw there, and continued talking:—
“I never knew much about heaven. You may guess that, if you have ever been in our alley. Only lately, Sallie Calkins she's been telling me what you told her; and I had a kind of notion that you must know what you was talking about, and that it was for rich folks and grand folks like you; but the man told about that Madge, you know, to-night—an awful drunkard and swearer, and all that—how she reformed and went to heaven. Dirk ain't no drunkard; but he will be. Everybody says he will, because father is such an awful one. Mother, she's never had no hope of him. She says father didn't drink till he was most twenty, and then he begun; and she's looking for Dirk to begin, and I haven't thought he could help it either. What if he doesn't care for it much yet? He will, it's likely. I've never told nobody that, not even Sallie, and I've been mad at mother every time she said any such thing; but all the time I've been expecting him to begin; and I know well enough, when once they begin, how it goes on. But that man to-night told things that made a difference. He says that God can keep them from wanting to drink, and help them right straight along; and that they can go to heaven as well as the next one. I've wanted nice things for Dirk all my life; but I never saw no way to get them, and it made me mad. To-night I saw a way, but I never had no kind of a notion how heaven looked till I come into this room, and see the light and the flowers and the shine, and another room spread out there in the glass: and now I know, and Dirk shall go!”
Mrs. Roberts was in no mood for laughing, the tears were dropping slowly on the flower she held in her hand. Mart saw in the glass just then a sight which seemed to add to her surprise. She turned wondering eyes on her hostess.
“What are you crying for?” she asked. “Don't spoil the flower; it is like the one Dirk bought me once. He said you sent it to me. I kept it most a week. I took it over to Sallie's, and she got fresh water for it every day, somehow; and it was then she begun to tell me what you said about heaven, and I thought if God had made such flowers as that for you, it was likely he had made a heaven for you; but I didn't believe it was for Dirk till to-night, and I didn't have no kind of a notion how it looked till just now. Do you believe what that man said—that folks like Dirk can go? Of course, if Madge went, why Dirk would have a right. He is bad just because he has to be. He never had no chance to be anything else; and he ain't very bad, anyhow—nothing to compare with some.” Her voice was almost fierce in its earnestness; she was beginning to resent the creeping doubt that Mrs. Roberts' silence suggested.
Careful words must be spoken now. What if this awakening soul should be turned aside! No wonder that the unspoken words were prayers.
“Dirk has a right to go to heaven,” she said, steadily, sweetly; “there is not the shadow of a doubt as to his right. No one in the world—not Satan himself—can deprive him of it; and it is not only his right, but his duty to go.”
“Then he shall!”