"Yes, he's in the ground-up,—in heaven!" said Katie in a dreamy way; for, in her small mind, she believed heaven was a place called "in the ground-up," and that was all she cared about it.
"Yes, Charlie is in the ground," replied Dotty, "but he doesn't know it. That dog Pincher was put in the ground; but I think likely he knew it, for his soul wasn't in heaven; and he hadn't any soul, not a real one."
"Well," said Katie, dancing out at the door, "when will the Charlie boy come back? I want um play."
"Why, Katie," said Dotty, in a tone of reproof, "haven't I told you he is all dead?"
"Well, you isn't dead—is you? Less us go an' swing!"
The little girls ran out to the trees, and soon forgot all about their old playmate. But, after this, whenever any one spoke of Charlie, Katie thought,—
"The Charlie boy's in the ground-up,—in heaven," and Dotty thought,—
"O, it is beautiful to be dead!"
For the present, we will leave them swinging under the tree at Grandma Parlin's; but if we see Miss Dimple again, she will have been spirited away to her own mother's home in the city of Portland.