"Who does he mean?" he asked, eagerly. "Whose mansions be they that he's getting ready?"
"Why, bless you, one of them is mine, and there'll be one ready for everybody who loves him."
Tode's voice sank to a husky whisper.
"Do you think there's one getting ready for me?"
"There's no kind of doubt about it, not if you love the Lord Jesus. I suppose as soon as ever you made up your mind to love him the Lord said, 'Now I must get a place ready for Tode, for he's decided that he wants to come up here with me.'"
Wiser brains than Tode's would doubtless have smiled at the old lady's original and perhaps untheological way of interpreting the truth; but he drank it in, and drew nearer to the true meaning of it than perhaps he would had it been learnedly explained.
"I never thought about it before in my life," he said, gravely. "And so that's heaven? And there ain't any trouble there I heard Mr. Birge say once in his preaching."
"Not a speck of trouble of any shape nor kind, nor nobody's wicked nor cross, and no bottles there, Tode, not a bottle."
"How do you know?"
"'Cause it says so right out, sharp and plain. 'No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.' That's Bible words, and you and I know that where there's bottles, and folks give them to their neighbors, why there'll be drunkards."