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Page 114

In the morning he sent a note to McLean, asking him to try to
trace the mother and inclosing the music-hall clipping and the
letter. The letter, signed only "Mamma," was not helpful. The
clipping might prove valuable.

"And for Heaven's sake be quick," wrote Peter. "This is a matter
of hours. I meant well, but I've done a terrible thing. Bring
her, Mac, no matter what she is or where you find her." The
Portier carried the note. When he came up to get it he brought in
his pocket a small rabbit and a lettuce leaf. Never before had
the combination failed to arouse and amuse the boy. He carried
the rabbit down again sorrowfully. "He saw it not," he reported
sadly to his wife. "Be off to the church while I deliver this
letter. And this rabbit we will not cook, but keep in
remembrance."

At eleven o'clock Marie called Peter, who was asleep on the
horsehair sofa.

"He asks for you."

Peter was instantly awake and on his feet. The boy's eyes were
open and fixed on him.

"Is it another day?" he asked.

"Yes, boy; another morning."

"I am cold, Peter."

They blanketed him, although the room was warm. From where he lay
he could see the mice. He watched them for a moment. Poor Peter,
very humble, found himself wondering in how many ways he had been
remiss. To see this small soul launched into eternity without a
foreword, without a bit of light for the journey! Peter's
religion had been one of life and living, not of creed.

Marie, bringing jugs of hot water, bent over Peter.

"He knows, poor little one!" she whispered.

And so, indeed, it would seem. The boy, revived by a spoonful or
two of broth, asked to have the two tame mice on the bed. Peter,
opening the cage, found one dead, very stiff and stark. The
catastrophe he kept from the boy.

"One is sick, Jimmy boy," he said, and placed the mate, forlorn
and shivering, on the pillow. After a minute:--

"If the sick one dies will it go to heaven?"

"Yes, honey, I think so."

The boy was silent for a time. Thinking was easier than speech.
His mind too worked slowly. It was after a pause, while he lay
there with closed eyes, that Peter saw two tears slip from under
his long lashes. Peter bent over and wiped them away, a great
ache in his heart.

"What is it, dear?"

"I'm afraid--it's going to die!"

"Would that be so terrible, Jimmy boy?" asked Peter gently. "To
go to heaven, where there is no more death or dying, where it is
always summer and the sun always shines?"

No reply for a moment. The little mouse sat up on the pillow and
rubbed its nose with a pinkish paw. The baby mice in the cage
nuzzled their dead mother.

"Is there grass?"

"Yes--soft green grass."

"Do--boys in heaven--go in their bare feet?" Ah, small mind and
heart, so terrified and yet so curious!

"Indeed, yes." And there on his knees beside the white bed Peter
painted such a heaven as no theologue has ever had the humanity
to paint--a heaven of babbling brooks and laughing, playing
children, a heaven of dear departed puppies and resurrected
birds, of friendly deer, of trees in fruit, of speckled fish in
bright rivers. Painted his heaven with smiling eyes and death in
his heart, a child's heaven of games and friendly Indians, of
sunlight and rain, sweet sleep and brisk awakening.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Mon 29th Dec 2025, 12:20

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart