anything that looked like an interesting story was forbidden. You were to
learn for the sake of the lesson and not for pleasure's sake. Mamma said
you had enough pleasure in play-time. She put it to your honour not to
skip on to the more exciting parts.

When you had finished Mrs. Markham you began Dr. Smith's "History of
England." Honour was safe with Dr. Smith. He made history very hard to
read and impossible to remember.

The Bible got harder, too. You knew all the best Psalms by heart, and the
stories about Noah's ark and Joseph and his coat of many colours, and
David, and Daniel in the lions' den. You had to go straight through the
Bible now, skipping Leviticus because it was full of things you couldn't
understand. When you had done with Moses lifting up the serpent in the
wilderness you had to read about Aaron and the sons of Levi, and the
wave-offerings, and the tabernacle, and the ark of the covenant where
they kept the five golden emerods. Mamma didn't know what emerods were,
but Mark said they were a kind of white mice.

You learnt Old Testament history, too, out of a little book that was all
grey slabs of print and dark pictures showing the earth swallowing up
Korah, Dathan and Abiram, and Aaron and the sons of Levi with their long
beards and high hats and their petticoats, swinging incense in fits of
temper. You found out queerer and queerer things about God. God made the
earth swallow up Korah, Dathan and Abiram. He killed poor Uzzah because
he put out his hand to prevent the ark of the covenant falling out of the
cart. Even David said he didn't know how on earth he was to get the ark
along at that rate. And there were the Moabites and the Midianites and
all the animals: the bullocks and the he-goats and the little lambs and
kids. When you asked Mamma why God killed people, she said it was because