ment. We went into the upper or finishing room, and after a long and tearful talk over my faults, he again showed me my account, which exhibited a fearful footing up of debits. I had no credits or offsets and was of course bankrupt. I then paid about one third of the debt, reckoned in strokes from a nicely prepared blue-beach switch, laid on 'masterly.' Then to my utter astonishment, father stripped off his shirt and seating himself on a block gave me the whip and bade me lay it on to his bare back. I dared not refuse to obey, but at first I did not strike hard. 'Harder,' he said, 'harder, harder!' until he received the balance of the account. Small drops of blood showed on his back where the tip end of the tingling beach cut through. Thus ended the account and settlement, which was also my first practical illustration of the doctrine of the atonement."[1]
Even the girls did not escape whipping. "He used to whip me often for telling lies," says a daughter, "but I can't remember his ever punishing me but once when I thought I didn't deserve, and then he looked at me so stern that I didn't dare to tell the truth. He had such a way of saying, 'Tut, tut!' if he saw the first sign of a lie in us, that he often frightened us children.
"When I first began to go to school," she continues, "I found a piece of calico one day behind one of the benches—it was not large, but seemed quite a treasure to me, and I did not show it to any
- ↑ John Brown, Jr., in Sanborn, pp.91–93.
