s. Procter
and all the children except the baby who was taking his early morning
nap upstairs, were in the kitchen busy at their tasks, Suzanna polishing
the stove, and Maizie peeling the potatoes for supper, a task Mrs.
Procter insisted upon being performed early in the day. Peter, exempted,
because of his sex, from household duties--and very unfair this
exemption Suzanna thought privately--was trying his awkward best to mend
a baseball. Maizie broke a rather long silence.

"Mother!" she cried, and then waited.

Mrs. Procter looked up from her kneading.

"What is it, Maizie?" she asked.

"Didn't Jesus ever laugh?" asked Maizie.

No one spoke. Maizie, engaged in peeling a large potato, went on quite
unconscious of the variant expressions pictured in the faces of her
audience: "He's always so sad in our Sunday School lessons, mother. Even
when He said, 'Suffer little children to come unto me,' He didn't
smile--or they never say so when they read the chapter," she finished.

Mrs. Procter looked helplessly at Suzanna. And Suzanna rose to the
occasion. "Maizie," she said, "you know Jesus was born in a manger so
His mother didn't have much money and it was hard to make both ends
meet. And, besides, there wasn't anything to smile about in those days
when the world was so fresh."

"I guess that's right," Mrs. Procter agreed. "What with going round and
trying to persuade people to be good and understand what He was trying
to tell them, there couldn't have been much excuse for smiling."

Maizie, however, was tenacious. "Mother, you know at times even when
things have all gone wrong you've laughed at something the baby did,"
she said looking up from her work.

"Yes, I know," put in Suzanna, as though Maizie had spoken to her. "But
mother doesn't have to go round turning water into wine and doing lots
of other wonderful things."

"Well, I wish He had smiled," Maizie persisted.

Suzanna looked searchingly at her sister. "Why do you wish that,
Maizie?" she asked.

"Oh, I'd think then He was more like a big brother," said Maizie. "Now,
sometimes I kind of feel afraid of Him."

"If you didn't feel afraid of Him, Maizie," Suzanna asked, turning back
to the cold stove and vigorously polishing away, "do you think you'd be
a better girl?"

Maizie flushed resentfully. "I'm good enough now," she answered.

"But you get mad for nothing, Maizie," said Suzanna; "you always get mad
when you don't see things."

"Anybody woul