“’Tisn’t anything really, Father, only I feel so miserable and the boys have been making fun of me.”

“Making fun, what about?”

“Oh, just because.”

“Because what, out with it!”

“Because I ate green cherries, I suppose.”

73“How long have you been eating green cherries, Jane?”

Jane considered. “Most a week.”

“And don’t you think you deserve to be laughed at, for doing anything so foolish?”

“They didn’t laugh at the monks–and they were grown-up men.”

“Monks? What do you mean?”