ie Louise was tired. She had had enough of fright, real or
feigned, and refused to be scalped. Besides, she had been to the
hairdresser's, and she explained that she really could not afford to
be scalped. The boy was bitterly disappointed, and he grew furious
when the untimely maid came for him and for his ruthless sister and
demanded that they come to bed at once or be reported.

As the warriors were dragged off to shameful captivity, Marie Louise,
watching them, was suddenly shocked by the thought of how early in
life humanity begins to revel in slaughter. The most innocent babes
must be taught not to torture animals. Cruelty comes with them like a
caul, or a habit brought in from a previous existence. They always
almost murder their mothers and sometimes quite slay them when they
are born. Their first pastimes are killing games, playing dead,
stories of witches, cannibalistic ogres. The American Indian is the
international nursery pet because of his traditional fiendishness.

It seemed inconsistent, but it was historically natural that the boy
interrupted in his massacre of his beloved aunt should hang back to
squall that he would say his prayers only to her. Marie Louise glanced
at her watch. She had barely time to dress for dinner, but the
children had to be obeyed. She made one weak protest.

"Fraeulein hears your prayers."

"But she's wented out."

"Well, I'll hear them, then."

"Dot to tell us fairy-'tory, too," said the girl.

"All right, one fairy-'tory--"

She went to the nursery, and the cherubs swarmed up to her lap
demanding "somefin bluggy."

Invention failed her completely. She hunted through her memory among
the Grimms' fairy-tales. She could recall nothing that seemed sweet
and guileless enough for these two lambs.

All that she could think of seemed to be made up of ghoulish plots;
of children being mistreated by harsh stepmothers; of their being
turned over to peasants to slay; of their being changed into animals
or birds; of their being seized by wolves, or by giants that drank
blood and crunched children's bones as if they were reed birds; of
hags that cut them up into bits or thrust them into ovens and cooked
them for gingerbread. It occurred to her that all the German
fairy-stories were murderously cruel. She felt a revulsion against
each of the legends. But her mind could not find substitutes.

After a period of that fearful ordeal when children tyrannize for
romances that will not