I (continued 2)
Reading edition
That night, as Libbie lay awake, revolving the incidents of the day, she caught Franky’s voice through the open windows. Instead of the frequent moan of pain, he was trying to recall the burden of one of the children’s hymns:
“Here we suffer grief and pain, Here we meet to part again; In Heaven we part no more. Oh! that will be joyful,” etc.
She recalled his question, the whispered question, to her in the happiest part of the day. He asked Libbie: “Is Dunham like Heaven? The people here are as kind as angels, and I don’t want Heaven to be more beautiful than this place. If you and mother would but die with me, I should like to die, and live always there!” She had checked him, for she feared he was impious; but now the young child’s craving for some definite idea of the land to which his inner wisdom told him he was hastening, had nothing in it wrong, or even sorrowful, for—
“In Heaven we part no more.”