Margaret-Mary entranced by one small bunny with a splash of white for a
cotton tail, sang, "Pitty sing, pitty sing."
"They don't weally lay eggs, do they?" Teddy ventured.
"I wouldn't ask such questions if I were you, Teddy."
"Why not?"
"Because you might find out that they didn't lay eggs, and then you'd
feel terribly disappointed."
"Well, isn't it better to know?"
Jean shook her head. "I'm not sure--it's nice to think that they do
lay eggs--blue ones and red ones and those lovely purple ones, isn't
it?"
"Yes."
"And if they don't lay them, who does?"
"Hens," said Teddy, rather unexpectedly, "and the rab-yits steal them."
"Who told you that?"
"Hodgson. And she says that she ties them up in rags and the colors
come off on the eggs."
"Well, I wouldn't listen to Hodgson."
"Why not? I like to listen."
"Because she hasn't any imagination."
"What's 'magination?"
They were getting in very deep. Jean gave it up. "Ask your mother,
Teddy."
So Teddy sought his unfailing source of information. "What's
'magination, Mother."
"It is seeing things, Teddy, with your mind instead of your eyes. When
I tell you about the poor little children in France who haven't any
food or any clothes except what the Red Cross gives them, you don't
really see them with your eyes, but your mind sees them, and their cold
little hands, and their sad little faces--"
"Yes." He considered that for a while, then swept on to the things
over which his childish brain puzzled.
"Mother, if the Germans get to Paris what will happen?"
He saw the horror in her face.
"Do you hate the Germans, Mother?"
"My darling, don't ask me."
After he had gone downstairs, Margaret got out her prayer-book, and
read the prayers for the day.
"Oh, merciful God, who hast made all men and hatest nothing that thou
hast made, nor desirest the death of a sinner, but rather that he
should be converted and live, have mercy on all Jews, Turks, infidels
and heretics, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and
contempt of Thy word, and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to Thy
flock, that they may be saved--"
She shut the book. No, she could not go on. She did not love her
enemies. She was not in the least sure that she wanted the Germans to
be saved!
On Easter morning, however, Teddy was instructed to pray for his
enemies. "We mustn't have hate in our hearts."
"Why mustn't we, Mother?"
"Well, Father wouldn't want it. We hate the evil they do, but we must
pray that they will be shown their wickedness and repent."
"If they re-pyent will they stop fighting?"
"My dearest, yes."
"How would they stop?"
Jean, who was ready for church and waiting, warned, "You'd better not
try to give an answer to that, Margaret, there isn't any."
Teddy ignored her. "How would they stop, Mother?"
"Well, they'd just stop, dear--"
"Would they say they were sorry?"
_Would William of Prussia ever be sorry_?
"Can God stop it, Mother?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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