The gates ajar. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

180 The Gates Ajar.
"Make it all up there, maybe?" musing,
— "the gills laughing at you all your life, and
all? That would be the bigger heft of the two
then, would n't it? for they say there ain't any
end to things up there. Why, so it might be
fair in Him after all; more'n fair, perhaps.
See here, Mrs. Forceythe, I'm not a churchmember, you know, and father, he's dreadful
troubled about me; prays over me like a span
of ministers, the old gentleman does, every
Sunday night. Now, I don't want to go to
the other place any more than the next man,
and I've had my times, too, of thinking I'd
keep steady and say my prayers reg'lar, —it
makes a chap feel on a sight better terms with
himself, -but I don't see how I'm going to
wear white frocks and stand up in a choir, -
never could sing no more'n a frog with a cold
in his head, - it tires me more now, honest, to
think of it, than it does to do a week's mowing.
Look at me! Do you s'pose I'm fit for it?
Father, he's always talking about the thrones,
and the wings, and the praises, and the palms,
and having new names in your foreheads,
(should n't object to that, though, by any
means), till he drives me into the tool-house,
or off on a spree. I tell him if God hain't got