She would hold up her little red arms, and sob:
“Mother Ermenild gave me the ’splin” (she could not say “Discipline”).
Little Ada, too, would constantly be carried to her cell, which was next to mine, and there laid on the bed, and lashed on her bare flesh by Mother Ermenild. When the child cried, she would say:
“If you don’t stop that noise, I will give it to you harder.”
Then another lash would come, and then another scream, after which she would say:
“Are you going to make any more noise? because I will give it to you again, if you are!”
The child would say:
“No, Mother,” and would try to smother her sobs in the bed-clothes.