Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/92

 Edward: "How'd we get there?"

Alice: "In a boat, silly. They're islands."

Edward: "My brother John has been to some of them. He says in some places the mosquitoes are worse than in Westchester. And he says the natives are dying off from drinking whisky and smallpox."

Alice: "I know that, but that isn't everywhere. That's only in the islands where they've taught them to be Christians. Father says that drunkenness and disease follow the Cross . . . How do you suppose we would like it if they came over here and beat their religion into us?"

Edward: "I could stand it all right. But . . ."

Here the two children glanced at Mrs. Eaton. A thought had struck them in common. The notion of Mrs. Eaton's being converted to some other religion than her own by a sudden rush of naked savages was rather appalling. Alice giggled.

Edward: "Is it true that they eat people?"

Alice: "Some of them do sometimes. But we wouldn't go to those islands. They call it Long Pig. When there are too many babies they bury them alive."

Edward: "Last year when there was so many tent caterpillars mother burned whole nests of them with a torch. She said she'd teach them."