ow, Caleb did not do this."

"Well, mother," said Dwight, "I am sure you have told us a good many
times that we must never say any thing unless we are sure it is true."

"So I have. I admit that Caleb did wrong in saying so positively that he
had hung his whip up, when he did not know certainly that he had. But
this does not prove that it was telling a lie. You know there are a
great many other faults besides telling lies; and this is one of them."

"What do you call it, mother?" said David.

"I don't know," said she, hesitating. "It is a very common
fault,--asserting a thing positively, when you do not know whether it is
true or not. But if you _think_ it is true, even if you have no proper
grounds for thinking so, and are entirely mistaken, it is not telling a
lie."

"In fact," she continued, "I once knew a case where one boy was justly
punished for falsehood when what he said was true; and another was
rewarded for his truth, when what he said was false."

"Why, mother?" said Dwight and David together, with great surprise.

"Yes," said Madam Rachel; "the case was this. They were farmers' boys,
and they wanted to go into the barn, and play upon the hay. Their father
told them they might go, but charged them to be careful to shut the door
after them in going in, so as not to let the colt get out. So the boys
ran off to the barn in high glee, and were so eager to get upon the hay,
that they forgot altogether to shut the door. When they came down they
found the door open, and to their great alarm, the colt was nowhere to
be seen. Josy, one of the boys, said, 'Let us shut the door now, and not
tell father that we let the colt out, and he will think somebody else
did it.'

"'No,' said James, the other, 'let us tell the truth.'

"So about an hour afterwards, Josy went into the house, and his father
said, 'Josy, did you let the colt out?'

"'No, sir,' said Josy.

"Not long after he met James.

"'James,' said he, 'you had a fine time upon the hay, I suppose. I hope
you did not let the colt out.'

"James hung his head, and said, 'Why, yes, sir, we did. We forgot to
shut the door, and so he got away.'

"Now, which of these boys, do you suppose, was guilty of telling a lie?"

"Why, Josy, certainly," said David, Dwight, and Caleb, all together.

"Yes, and yet the colt had not got away."

"Hadn't he?" said Dwight.

"No, he was safely coiled up in a corner upon some hay, out of sight;
and there the farmer found