By an inexplicable insight the child seemed to know that he was dying.
For, one morning, after having tossed about all the night long, he
suddenly cried out in tone most pitiful,
"Mother, don't put me in a hole."
As far as any of them knew, he had never seen a funeral--at least to
know what it was--had never heard anything about death or burial: his
father had a horror of the subject!
The words went like a knife to the heart of the mother. She sat silent,
neither able to speak, not knowing what to answer.
Again came the pitiful cry,
"Mother, don't put me in a hole."
Most mothers would have sought to soothe the child, their own hearts
breaking the while, with the assurance that no one should put him into
any hole, or anywhere he did not want to go. But this mother could not
lie in the face of death, nor had it ever occurred to her that no
_person_ is ever put into a hole, though many a body.
Before she could answer, a third time came the cry, this time in
despairing though suppressed agony,--
"Mother, don't let them put me in a hole."
The mother gave a cry like the child's, and her heart within her became
like water.
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