“While the flour baby project has indeed left Simon wiser and more tolerant, he is and still can be rather a handful for his mother and his teachers, although he did actually and in fact do a much much better job caring for his flour baby than many if not most of his schoolmates, than his school friends did.”
“The really unreal thing was that she didn’t care in the least what they thought of her. She felt a hundred years older and wiser than this love-mad rabble in her class.”
″ ‘What,’ cried I, ‘were you in the English army?’
‘That was I,’ said Alan. ‘But I deserted to the right side at Prestonpans–and that’s some comfort.’
I could scarcely share this view: holding desertion under arms for an unpardonable fault in honour. But for all I was so young, I was wiser than say my thought. ‘Dear, dear,’ says I, ‘the punishment is death.’ ”
“The hospitality of squatters is world-famed, but this breaks all previous records, Esther. Accept by all means - everyone of you. On their own heads be the results; but I’m afraid Yarrahappini will be a sadder and wiser place before the month is over.”