"Margaret," said she, "if you ever tell another wrong story, I shall whip you harder than this, you may depend upon it."
I was frightened into awful silence for a while, but soon forgot the threat. I was careful to avoid the name of Jane Smif, but I very soon went and told Ruphelle that my mamma had silk dresses, spangled with stars; "kep' 'em locked into a trunk; did her mamma have stars on her dresses?" Ruphelle looked as meek as a lamb, but her brother Gust snapped his fingers, and said,—
"O, what a whopper!"
That is why I remember it, for Ruth heard him, and asked what kind of a whopper I had been telling now, and reported it to mother.
Mother rose very sorrowfully from her chair, and bade me follow her into the attic. I went with fear and trembling, for she had that dreadful switch in her hand. Poor woman! She wished she had not promised to use it again, for she began to think it was all in vain. But she must not break her word; so she struck me across the wrists and ankles several times; not very hard, but hard enough to make me hop about and cry.
When she had finished she turned to go down stairs, but I said something so strange that she stopped short with surprise.
"I can't 'pend upon it, mamma," said I, looking out through my hair, with the tears all dried off. "You said you'd whip me harder, but you whipped me softer. I can't 'pend upon it, mamma. You've telled a lie yourse'f."
What could mother say? I have often heard her describe the scene with a droll smile. She gave me a few more tingles across the neck, to satisfy my ideas of justice; but that was the last time she used the switch for many a long day. Not that I stopped telling marvellous stories; but she thought she would wait till she saw some faint sign in me that I knew the "diffunce" between truth and falsehood.