"Say, young fella, how about that henhouse you was to fresco with whitewash yesterday?"
"I did it, mother."
"Well, you let the brush kinda lick down the walls, but what I call a thora coat you did not give it! Now, I like my jobs done thora. There's a good pail o' whitewash waitin' for you outside, to say nothin' o' the brush to lay it on with. An', while the girls an' me goes over to the other side o' the lake to get laurel, you get busy on the inter'or o' that hen-residence, my son. An'——"
"Oh—oh, mother-r!" Sammy's wail came from a stricken heart.
It failed to make the slightest impression apparently.
"You knew you was botchin' all the time," Martha pulled him up short. "After a while, you'll get on to it that you can't palm off careless work on me—I know too much about it."
"I did what you told me, mother," the boy managed to bring out, between heavy sobs.
"What did I tell you?"
"You told me—do the inside o' the henhouse, an' I done it!"
"Yes, but how about the roosts? You never touched brush to the roosts. It's a pity if a child o' mine's gotta be told do every last thing, when he knows better. You can take it from me, I ain't bringin' you childern up to be the kind o' household pets servants is, nowadays. I wanta learn you to think for yourselves, sometimes, an' do a thing the right way, because it's right to do it that way. Never mind if anybody sees it, or not. Now, you listen to me, since you're so partic'lar: You go into that hen-house, with your pail, an' your brush, an' you whitewash down every last thing in it, roosts an' all. Don't you leave a thing go free. Do you understand me?"