"Will he come back?"

"No."

"Did he want to go?"

"We'll hope so."

"But he left his--his fur coat behind him. Didn't he
need--that?"

"No, or he'd have taken it with him."

David had fallen silent at this. He had remained strangely silent
indeed for some days; then, out in the woods with his father one
morning, he gave a joyous shout. He was standing by the
ice-covered brook, and looking at a little black hole through
which the hurrying water could be plainly seen.

"Daddy, oh, daddy, I know now how it is, about being--dead."

"Why--David!"

"It's like the water in the brook, you know; THAT'S going to a
far country, and it isn't coming back. And it leaves its little
cold ice-coat behind it just as the squirrel did, too. It does
n't need it. It can go without it. Don't you see? And it's
singing--listen!--it's singing as it goes. It WANTS to go!"