"Any news from the hatchet, Maggie?" And then chucked me under the chin, adding, "You're a steam-tug for telling wrong stories. Didn't know how smart you were before."
Miss Rubie said nothing; she came in with Fel every day; but I presumed she was thinking over that solemn text, "Thou, God, seest me."
'Ria did not say anything either; but I always felt as if she was just going to say something, and dreaded to have her bring in my dinner.
I knew that father "looked straight through my face down to the lie;" but I still thought that mother believed in me. One day I found out my mistake. Ned had been saying some pretty cutting things, and I appealed to her, as she came into the room:—
"Mayn't Ned stop plaguing me, mamma?"
"No more of that, Edward," said mother, looking displeased. "It is too serious a subject for jokes. If Margaret has told us a wrong story, she is, of course, very unhappy. Do not add to her distress, my son. We keep hoping every day to hear her confess the truth; she may be sure there is nothing that would make us all so glad."
So mother knew! She must have known all along! She turned to bring me my dolly from the table, and I saw her eyes were red. I wanted to throw myself on her neck and confess; but there was Ned, and somehow I never saw mother alone after that when I could make it convenient.
She was right in thinking me unhappy, but she little dreamed how wretched I was. Horace and Prudy, you have heard something of this before; but I must tell it now to Dotty and Fly; for that hatchet affair was a sort of crisis in my life.
You know I had not always told the truth. My imagination was active, and I liked to relate wonderful stories, to make people open their eyes. It was not wrong in the first place, for I was a mere baby. The whole world was new and wonderful to me, and one thing seemed about as strange to me as another. I could not see much difference between the real and the unreal, between the "truly true" and the make believe. When I said my mamma had silk dresses, spangled with stars, I was thinking,—
"Perhaps she has. There's sumpin in a trunk locked up, and I guess it's silk dresses."