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on, and the heavy drapes were closed. Carol had a hard time finding her mother in the dark. When she did, she gave Mamma the hankie and told her not to cry. She patted her mother's shoulders and said, 'Everything will be OK, Mamma.' That's what Mamma did when Carol scraped her knees; that's what you were supposed to do, wasn't it?

But Mamma only cried louder. Then she wailed, 'Dont you want a baby brother?' Carol hadn't really thought about it before Mamma brought it up. She was happy most of the time and hadn't wanted anything other than another dog like Penny. But Mamma was like that, she expected for you to know things that you wouldn't normally know. You had to go along with it, too. Carol didn't know why, she just knew that was what the family did. At least this time it wasn't something that Carol had done by mistake that made Mamma cry.

'Jesus will give you a baby if you want one,' Carol proclaimed. 'That lady in the Bible prayed for a long time, but she finally got one. Have you prayed for a long time?' Mamma nodded and stopped sobbing. She wiped her nose on the hankie. It make a funny snorking sound, but Carol dared not laugh.

'What lady in the Bible?' Mamma asked. A quiet tear plopped on Carol's hand.

'The one that was real old. The angel came and said she'd have a baby and she laughed, so when they had the little boy they had to name him something that meant laughing in that really old Bible language.' Carol answered. She was excited to share what she had learned and nearly ran her words together. 'But there was another one too. She said that if she got a baby, she'd give him to God and take him to the temple when he was still littler than me.'

Mamma had hugged Carol and told her daughter that she was proud of her for paying such close attention in Sunday School. Then Mamma asked her daughter to pray with her, together. Each one of them would pray in turn. She said that it worked better that way. The girl figured her mother was probably right, otherwise her Sunday School class wouldn't pray like that. She couldn't imagine that her teacher would do that if it didn't work. She felt funny saying her part of the prayer though. She hadn't had time to think about it or memorise what she was going to say.

She inhaled and did her best. 'God, my Mamma and me want a baby. Can we have one so Mamma wont cry anymore? In Jesus name, amen.' She hoped that this prayer was good enough.

Then, in her own mind, where her mother couldn't hear, Carol added, 'And I'd rather have

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