es."

Pretty soon, Pop and I were out doing the rest of the chores while Mom
was getting supper. Almost right away, it began to get dark, and we
went in to supper. "Wash your hands and go get Charlotte Ann," Mom
said to me. "I think she's awake now."

Charlotte Ann, you know, is my baby sister, and even though she is a
girl, is a pretty swell baby; in fact, she's wonderful.

In a few minutes Pop and Mom and Charlotte Ann and I were all sitting
around our kitchen table in the lamp light. We had two kerosene lamps
lit, one of them behind me on the high mantel-shelf above my head, and
the other on another mantel-shelf above the water pail in the corner.

We always bowed our heads at our house before every meal, different
ones of us asking the blessing, whichever one of us Pop called on.
When I was little I'd said a little poem prayer, but didn't do it any
more on account of Pop thought I was too big, and since I was an
actual Christian, in spite of having Jimson-weeds in my heart, I
always prayed whenever Pop told me to, only I hoped that he wouldn't
ask me to tonight. Pop looked around the table at all of us, and Mom
helped Charlotte Ann fold her hands, which she didn't want to do, but
kept wiggling and squirming and reaching for things on the table,
which were too far away, "Well, let's see--whom shall we ask to pray,
tonight? ah--"

Pop's "ah--" was cut short by the telephone ringing our ring, which
meant that one of us had to answer the phone. "I'll get it," I said,
"maybe it's one of the gang--"

"I'll get it," Mom said, "I'm expecting a call--I say, I'LL GET IT!"
Mom raised her voice on account of I was already out of my chair and
half way to the living room door.

When Mom came back a minute later, she was smiling like she'd had some
wonderful news, and it was, "It was Mrs. Long. _Mr._ Long won't be
home tomorrow, so she can go to church with us. Isn't that wonderful?
It's an answer to prayer."

I spoke up then and said, "How about Shorty? Is he going too?"

I don't know what there was in my voice that shouldn't have been, when
I asked that question, but Mom said in an astonished tone of voice,
"Why, Bill Collins! The very idea! Don't you _want_ him to go to
church and Sunday School and learn something about being a Christian?
Do you want him to grow up to be a heathen? What's the matter with
you?"

I gulped. Mom had read my thoughts like an open school book. "Of
course," I said, "he ought to go to chur