The Poisonwood Bible

ken house for all the teeth in China.
Well, any two straight things can make a shadow of an X is what Mother told him, which is true, especially with a wild imagination coming into play. Probably some clown is just trying to scare him and needs a good poke in the puss. But Nelson said this was not just ordinary shadows. He said it was the dreaming of snakes.
Father announced this was the unfortunate effect of believing in false idols and he washed his hands of the affair. He was washing his hands left and right that evening. Mother didn't necessarily agree with him, but I could see she didn't want us going anywhere near that chicken house to investigate. Father quoted a Bible verse about the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. He told Mother if she let Nelson sleep in our house that night she'd be playing directly into the hands of the idol worshipers, and if she wanted to count herself as one of them she could take her children and go seek shelter among them. Then he turned to us and declared it was high time for us to go to bed and put the light out on laughable Congolese superstitions.
But Nelson slunk out of the house in such a terrified state we couldn't find anything to laugh about, that is for sure. Even Anatole had been telling us to be extra careful right now, and Anatole, I must admit, has his head firmly attached to his shoulders. We tried to get ready for bed, but all we could hear was Nelson outside whimpering to be allowed to come in, and we became scared out of our minds. Even Leah did. We did not believe in voodoo spirits, and informed each other of that fact till we were blue in the face. But still there was some dark thing out there watching us from the forest and coiling up under people's beds at night, and whether you
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BEL AND THE SERPENT 359
call it fear or the dreaming of snakes or false idolatry or what