."

"I never will, now that I know it's bad," asseverated Davy between sobs.
"If you ever catch me telling a whopper again you can . . ." Davy groped
mentally for a suitable penance . . . "you can skin me alive, Anne."

"Don't say 'whopper,' Davy . . . say 'falsehood,'" said the schoolma'am.

"Why?" queried Davy, settling comfortably down and looking up with
a tearstained, investigating face. "Why ain't whopper as good as
falsehood? I want to know. It's just as big a word."

"It's slang; and it's wrong for little boys to use slang."

"There's an awful lot of things it's wrong to do," said Davy with a
sigh. "I never s'posed there was so many. I'm sorry it's wrong to tell
whop . . . falsehoods, 'cause it's awful handy, but since it is I'm never
going to tell any more. What are you going to do to me for telling them
this time? I want to know." Anne looked beseechingly at Marilla.

"I don't want to be too hard on the child," said Marilla. "I daresay
nobody ever did tell him it was wrong to tell lies, and those Sprott
children were no fit companions for him. Poor Mary was too sick to train
him properly and I presume you couldn't expect a six-year-old child to
know things like that by instinct. I suppose we'll just have to assume
he doesn't know ANYTHING right and begin at the beginning. But he'll
have to be punished for shutting Dora up, and I can't think of any way
except to send him to bed without his supper and we've done that so
often. Can't you suggest something else, Anne? I should think you ought
to be able to, with that imagination you're always talking of."

"But punishments are so horrid and I like to imagine only pleasant
things," said Anne, cuddling Davy. "There are so many unpleasant things
in the world already that there is no use in imagining any more."

In the end Davy was sent to bed, as usual, there to remain until noon
next day. He evidently did some thinking, for when Anne went up to her
room a little later she heard him calling her name softly. Going in, she
found him sitting up in bed, with his elbows on his knees and his chin
propped on his hands.

"Anne," he said solemnly, "is it wrong for everybody to tell whop . . .
falsehoods? I want to know?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Is it wrong for a grown-up person?"

"Yes."

"Then," said Davy decidedly, "Marilla is bad, for SHE tells them. And
she's worse'n me, for I didn't know it was wrong but she does."

"Davy Keith, Marilla never told a story in h