In fact Sara's attitude toward them was that of a missionary having rescued them from a savage life. One gathered that she highly disapproved of all their doings when out of captivity. No scuffling around naked for Sara's Kewpies—no roosting on trees! No living in nests any more! No high-minded missionary ever descended upon an innocent South Sea tribe and put them all into shirts and trousers with greater gusto than did Sara.
She would despoil her own dolls, those with cotton or kid bodies, for the sake of making clothes for her Kewpies. Her dolls would sprawl round indecorously—nakedness as such was not repellent to Sara's moral sense. When her mother tried to find out why Kewpies needed clothes—"They'll catch cold," said Sara, indicating Kewpies, "these won't."
"But why?" asked Alice. "Why will they catch cold?"
"Because," was Sara's reply, and the intonation in which she answered made her mother feel a fool for having asked her the question.
"They don't catch cold," Alice pursued.
"They do," said Sara, "they do!" Temper shone dangerously near. Alice saw that it was the part of a wise parent to drop the subject; but that night the nursery resembled a hospital ward in an Arctic clime. It was not with ordinary maternal feeling that Sara put her Kewpies to bed. She performed this service with an impatient intensity, glowering over her shoulder and casting suspicious glances upon her mother and nurse as one who would say, "Touch one of these blankets if you dare!" There was that about her that suggested she would suffer martyrdom and was even ready to brave the terrors of a spanking should any one
