ALREADY before school closed its gates upon him, Robert had been growing up, and each day took him away from Sara, who remained hopelessly imbedded in the early innocence of babyhood.
What he thought of Sara he let out one Sunday morning when Sara was first to appear in Sunday school.
"I'm not going to take Sara to Sunday School," he announced, "unless she'll learn who Christ is." He looked at his sister with disapproval. His attitude toward her was that of a sensitive young man of twenty, towards a sister afflicted with the giggles. Silly was what he thought Sara was. "There isn't another child of her age," he went on, "who doesn't know who Christ is. Every child knows—only Sara. She won't learn—she don't care. And why don't she care? It's because she can't stand religion."
"I can too," came from Sara, who was sitting on the floor making a long circus procession from the animals in Jamie's Noah's Ark.
"You don't. You don't even know who Noah was. You play all day with Noah's Ark and you don't even know who Noah is. She's like that," he confided to his mother. "She's just as thick, she's just as dumb."
"Thick! dumb!" thought Alice to herself. Here were the fruits of public school.
"I do know who Noah is," said Sara belligerently.
"Who is he?" said Robert the inquisitor.
"He's the one what the whale et," replied Sara with assurance.
