The Angel Children | Page 5

"Why, Tom, I have learned a great deal about God from Genevieve,
and then she has taught me to read, and I have learned a great deal that
way. Tom, where do you think Susan went when she died?"
Tom couldn't tell. Susan was an elder sister of theirs, whom they had
loved very dearly, and who had died some two years before.
"Well, Tom; there are angels who take all the children, as soon as they
die, and show them wonderful things, and teach them, so they can go
into a beautiful place called heaven, and live with God. Well, if you
begin to be good here, and love people, you will go into that heaven
sooner, when you die, than if you are naughty, and don't think about
these things while you are here. I want to go there very much, and so I
try to be good, though I don't always make out well." Tom looked
thoughtful at his sister's words, and then said:
"I think that little Genevieve will go very fast, when she dies. But I
don't think father will get there very soon, now I tell you!"
"O, but Tom," said Hepsa sadly, "we must not think who will not go,

but how we may go."
"I wish I knew how to read," said Tom; "but I never can go to school,
father makes me saw so much wood."
Then Hepsa asked him to let her teach him; and, after a good deal of
hesitation, he told her he didn't care if she did.
Some time after this, Genevieve's father and mother went away from
that place, and she parted from Hepsa with many tears in her eyes, and
much grief in her heart. "If I never see you again," she said, "don't
forget we are both going into the gardens up there," and Hepsa always
remembered.
Genevieve was a very quiet girl, but she was always ready to do
something to please her dear mother, and at night brought her father's
slippers from the closet, and placed them ready by his chair. She did,
too, many little things for the servants, who all loved her very dearly;
so when, a few years afterwards, she fell sick, and nothing they could
do for her was able to make her any better, but the doctor said she must
die, they all wept very much, and no comfort or joy could come into
their hearts. But Genevieve gently kissed them, and told them a
beautiful peace had come into her heart, for that, in the night, Christ
often came to her, and told her how the angel was all ready to take her
into his beautiful garden, and teach her out of his great golden books.
At last, one morning she died, and they laid her away in the garden near
by the fountain; and they planted the mignonette and myrtle, that,
mingling with the moss, it might grow over her grave.
And her mother said in her heart, "Let her lie here, that, as often as I
come hither, I may be reminded of the more beautiful gardens of God,
to which she has flown. And when, in the cool night, the stars look
down, the soft fragrance of the mignonette shall tell them of her
loveliness, and the myrtle and the moss of the constant love twining
together the souls of the mother and the daughter."
It was as Christ had said; the angel stood ready, and when Genevieve

closed her eyes in death, he caught her in his arms, and placed her
before the Great Gate, which led into the gardens around the kingdom
of heaven. A great many men, women and children stood about it,
waiting for it to be opened, when suddenly a very bright angel, brighter
than any she had ever seen in her dreams, came among them, seated on
glorious clouds.
Then one by one did the crowd go before him, telling him what things
they had done on earth, in order to be admitted into the gardens, to be
prepared still more for the heavens. One said he had built a large
college, given it a large sum of money, and called it by his name, that
the world might see his works, and praise the Lord. Another told him
how he had toiled in heathen lands, and dwelt among savages, that they
might know and love God; another that he had prophesied; another that
he had built a hospital for the poor, and had sheltered them from the
cold winds; another still that he had delivered slaves from cruel masters,
and brought them to the light of freedom. O, there cannot be counted
all the men and women who came before the angel, and told of the
things they