Dotty did not spend all her time in whispering: she sometimes tried to study; but it was very hard to fix her thoughts. She would repeat a word again and again, and all the while be thinking of something else; or she would mean to look at her book, and, instead of that, find herself watching Miss Parker, or counting the buttons on some little girl’s frock.
Now, it happened that Miss Parker, though a fine teacher, and an excellent young lady, had one very foolish method; and it was this.
In the afternoon, before the school was dismissed, she asked the children to tell her if they had whispered during the day; and if they declared they had not, she smiled, and seemed very much pleased. All this would have been well enough, if the little creatures had told the truth; but, alas! they were so anxious for their teacher’s smile, that they often, very often, told falsehoods.
Miss Parker had no idea she was tempting them to do wrong. She believed every word they said. If she had been more observing, she might have known that the children, who looked so innocent, were really sad little chatterboxes. Dotty Dimple was amazed to see Tate’s hand go up every night in token that she had not whispered.
“Why, Tate,” said she one day, “you’re just as bad as Jennie Vance! She lies, ‘one to another,’ and so do you!”
Tate looked grieved.
“O, Dotty Dimple! I don’t do any such a thing!”
“But nights, when Miss Parker asks if we’ve whispered, you hold up your hand, Tate; and that’s the same as to say, you never!”
“But I don’t speak, Dotty Dimple. I shut my lips right together; and how CAN you tell a lie when you don’t tell anything?”
“Well,” said Dotty, hesitating, “p’raps it isn’t telling a lie, but it’s doing a lie. Miss Parker thinks you don’t whisper, and then she praises you. She never praises me, ’cause I keep my hand right down to my side. I’m a great deal better’n you are, Tate; but she doesn’t know it.”