Presently Shocky began looking up into Ralph's eyes to get a smile.

"I guess that tree feels just like me.

Don't you ?" "Why, how do you feel ?" "Kind o' bad and lonesome, and like as if I wanted to die, you know.
Felt that way ever sence they put my father into the graveyard, and sent my mother to the poor-house and Hanner to ole Miss Means's.

What kind of a place is a poor-house?
Is it a poorer place than Means's?
I wish I was dead and one of them clouds was a-carryin' me and Hanner and mother up to where father's gone, you know! I wonder if God forgets all about poor folks when their father dies and their mother gits into the poor-house?
Do you think He does?
Seems so to me.

Maybe God lost track of my father when he come away from England and crossed over the sea.