"
"Ah, yes, Moxy!" said the poor mother, "Jesus died for our sins, and you
must ask him to take you up to heaven."
But Moxy did not know anything about sins, and just as little about
heaven. What he wanted was an assurance that he would not be put in the
hole. And the mother, now a little calmer, thought she saw what she
ought to say.
"It ain't your soul, it's only your body, Moxy, they put in the hole,"
she said.
"I don't want to be put in the hole," Moxy almost screamed. "I don't
want my head cut off!"
The poor mother was at her wits' end.
But here the child fell into a troubled sleep, and for some hours a
silence as of the grave filled the dreary cellar.
The moment he woke the same cry came from his fevered lips, "Don't put
me in the hole," and at intervals, growing longer as he grew weaker, the
cry came all the day.
CHAPTER XLIII.
DELIVERANCE.
Hester had been to church, and had then visited some of her people,
carrying them words of comfort and hope. They received them in a way at
her hand, but none of them, had they gone, would have found them at
church. How seldom is the man in the pulpit able to make people feel
that the things he is talking about are things at all! Neither when the
heavens are black with clouds and rain, nor when the sun rises glorious
in a blue perfection, do many care to sit down and be taught astronomy!
But Hester was a live gospel to them--and most when she sang.
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