Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/249

Rh "But it is to make you better," said Mrs. Fisher gently.

"But I dunna want to get better," said Benny; "I wants to go to heaven."

"But you should be willing to wait the Lord's time, Benny."

"I's waited so long," he said fretfully, "that I's tired of waitin'."

"But it's wrong to murmur at what is God's will, Benny."

"Are it?" he said. "I didn't know; but I's very tired."

"But you'll get rested after a while, if you'll be patient."

"Ah, then," he said, with a sigh, "I mun try, I s'pose."

But in spite of Benny's anxiety to die, health and strength came back to him day by day, and one beautiful July Sabbath afternoon he was dressed, for the first time, in a suit of dead Rob's clothes, and carried into another room, and placed in an easy chair by the window, that he might feast his eyes on the beautiful landscape that stretched out before him. Benny submitted to the process without speaking a word, for he was still very weak; but after he had recovered himself a little, he looked curiously at the clothes in which he was enveloped, as if not at all certain of his identity.

"I reckon I's not Benny Bates," he said at length.

"Oh, yes, you are," said Mrs. Fisher, who had been watching him with an amused smile upon her face.

"Then," he said, looking up, "these are not my togs."

"No; but I think I'll give them to you, Benny."

"Whew!" lifting his eyebrows. Then he began to search