"Yes," said this wicked boy.
"Trusty, Trusty," said his mother, turning round; and Trusty, who was lying before the fire, drying his legs, which were wet with the milk, jumped up, and came to her. Then she said, "Fie! fie! Trusty!" and she pointed to the milk.—"Get me a switch out of the garden, Robert; Trusty must be beat for this."
Robert ran for the switch, and in the garden he met his brother: he stopped him, and told him, in a great hurry, all that he had said to his mother; and he begged of him not to tell the truth, but to say the same as he had done.
"No, I will not tell a lie," said Frank.—"What! and is Trusty to be beat!—He did not throw down the milk, and he shan't be beat for it—Let me go to my mother."
They both ran toward the house—Robert got first home, and he locked the house-door, that Frank might not come in. He gave the switch to his mother.
Poor Trusty! he looked up as the switch was lifted over his head; but he could not speak, to tell the truth. Just as the blow was falling upon him, Frank's voice was heard at the window.
"Stop, stop! dear mother, stop!" cried he, as loud as ever he could call; "Trusty did not do it—let me in—I and Robert did it—but do not beat Robert."
"Let us in, let us in," cried another voice, which Robert knew to be his father's; "I am just come from work, and here's the door locked."
Robert turned as pale as ashes when he heard his father's voice; for his father always whipped him when he told a lie.
His mother went to the door, and unlocked it.