FIVE CHILDREN AND IT
the amber-coloured ribbons off the girls' Sunday dresses. Then they stuck turkeys' feathers in the ribbons. The calico looked very like long black hair, especially when the strips began to curl up a bit.
"But our faces," said Anthea, "they're not at all the right colour. We're all rather pale, and I'm sure I don't know why, but Cyril is the colour of putty."
"I'm not," said Cyril.
"The real Indians outside seem to be brownish," said Robert hastily. "I think we ought to be really red—it's sort of superior to have a red skin, if you are one."
The red ochre cook uses for the kitchen bricks seemed to be about the reddest thing in the house. The children mixed some in a saucer with milk, as they had seen cook do for the kitchen floor. Then they carefully painted each other's faces and hands with it, till they were quite as red as any Red Indian need be—if not redder.
They knew at once that they must look very terrible when they met Eliza in the passage,
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