Sez I, "Then you wuz whippin' him for not tellin' a lie, and you made him tell one, for, at last, to stop the cruel sting of the blows on his poor little back, you did finally succeed in makin' him say he had been wicked, when he hadn't been, and sorry, when he wuzn't sorry, poor little creeter!"
"You always take Jack's part, Samantha."
"Not before Jack, Tamer Smith."
"No, you don't say anything before him, but you kinder act in such a way that he knows you are on his side, that you are his friend."
"Well, I should think he needed one, poor little creeter!"
"Don't you spoze, Samantha Allen, a mother knows what is best and right for her children? Don't you spoze she acts for his best good?"
"Not when she leaves blue, livid marks on his back, not when she whips him into tellin' a lie."
"What you mean by that, I don't know," sez Tamer.
"He wuzn't sorry," sez I; "not a particle, and you whipped him till he said he wuz."
"Well, he ought to be sorry if he wuzn't, and I would like to know what you would have me do."
"I would have you never make a child say a thing that wuzn't true, and if you had sot your mind on havin' him say he wuz sorry, reason with him and tell him why he ort to be sorry till he wuz sorry. But you jest sprung at him and whipped him, as sudden and voyalent as a hailstorm that ravages down on a flower garden, cuttin' and peltin' and slashin' and killin' all the dainty leaves and blossoms. And it didn't do any more good and jest as much hurt as that voyalent storm would, with no soft
