' he continued, looking up through the leaves at the blue vault
above him, 'that there's a place up yonder somewhere where good people
go when they die, and where _everybody_ is happy. I've thought, since I
heard about it, that perhaps some people went there without dying. If
they _do_, Harry, and I can only find out the way, I'd leave this mean
old place, and go there straight, this very minute. I'd like to have you
and pa come, Harry; but ma is always scolding or whipping us for
something. I don't like ma, and I don't care whether she ever gets there
or not. Come to think of it,' pursued Charley, as a new thought seemed
to strike him, 'I had a good deal rather she wouldn't come; for if she
_did_ find out the way, and come up there after a while, like as any way
she'd bring a switch with her.'

'You shouldn't talk so about ma, Charley,' said his meek-eyed brother.
'She isn't cross _always_. She has been kind to me to-day, so kind,'
said the little fellow, stemming with his fingers two great round drops
that were slowly running down his cheeks, 'that it makes the tears come
to think about it. I was with her a great long while, and she didn't
scold or speak cross once. Why, only think, Charley,' he proceeded,
opening his eyes, as if the fact about to be communicated could never be
sufficiently wondered at, 'we were all alone together for ever so long,
and she might have got angry and whipped me just as well as not, and pa
would never know anything about it.'

'It's a wonder she didn't,' scornfully returned his brother; 'it would
have been such a nice chance. She don't get such a chance as _that_
every day. There wouldn't have been any fun in it if she had, though;
for I tell you what it is,' he continued, looking about on his hands for
sundry marks and dents left thereon by the nails of his mother, 'I tell
you what it is, Harry, when she gets hold of a feller, she digs right
in. She pounds us more than half the time for just nothing at all, only
because she gets mad and likes to do it. To be sure, I get mad myself
sometimes, and say ugly words, and ought to be whipped; but you, _you_
never do anything to be whipped for, and _she_,' proceeded the indignant
little fellow, with an emphasis of immeasurable scorn on that personal
pronoun, '_she_ to go to work and pound a little, pale fellow like you!
Why, she ought to be ashamed of herself. I get so mad sometimes when she
gets to whipping us, and pa comes to take us away, tha