shine and shade, in joy and sorrow. Our two hands that had joined at the
alter, and had clung so clost together ever sence, had got to leggo of
each other down there in front of the dark gateway. Solemn gateway! So
big that the hull world must pass through it--and yet so small that the
hull world has got to go through it alone, one at a time.

My Josiah would have to stand outside and let me go down under the dark,
mysterious arches, alone--and he knows jest how I hate to go anywhere
alone, or else I would have to stop at the gate and bid him good-by. And
no matter how much we knocked at the gate, or how many tears we shed
onto it, we couldn't get through till our time come, we had _got_ to be
parted.

And now if we went on this clear June day through the crystal gateway of
the bendin' heavens--we two would be together for weal or for woe. And
on whatever new, strange landscape we would have to look on, or wander
through, he would be right by me. Whatever strange inhabitants the
celestial country held, he would face 'em with me. Close, close by my
side, he would go with me through that blue, lovely gateway of the soft
June skies into the City of the King. And it wuz a sweet thought to me.

Not that I really _wanted_ the world to come to a end that day. No,
I kinder wanted to live along for some time, for several reasons: My
pardner, the babe, the children, etc.; and then I kinder like to live
for the _sake_ of livin'. I enjoy it.

But I can say, and say with truth, and solemnity, that the idee didn't
scare me none. And as my companion looked down in my face as the time
approached, I could see the same thoughts that wuz writ in my eyes
a-shinin' in his'n.