l in vain.
But she must not break her word; so she struck me across the wrists
and ankles several times; not very hard, but hard enough to make me
hop about and cry.

When she had finished she turned to go down stairs, but I said
something so strange that she stopped short with surprise.

"I _can't_ 'pend upon it, mamma," said I, looking out through my hair,
with the tears all dried off. "You said you'd whip me harder, but you
whipped me _softer_. I _can't_ 'pend upon it, mamma. You've telled a
lie yourse'f."

What could mother say? I have often heard her describe the scene
with a droll smile. She gave me a few more tingles across the neck, to
satisfy my ideas of justice; but that was the last time she used the
switch for many a long day. Not that I stopped telling marvellous
stories; but she thought she would wait till she saw some faint sign
in me that I knew the "diffunce" between truth and falsehood.

CHAPTER II.

THE LADY CHILD.

They say I grew very troublesome. Ruthie thought I was always "under
foot," and nothing went on, from parlor to kitchen, from attic to
cellar, but I knew all about it. There was not a pie, particularly a
mince pie, that I didn't try to have a finger in.

But I could not have been in the house _all_ the time, for Abner
declares I was always out of doors. My little shoes were generally
thick with mud, and my little frocks ready every night for the
wash-tub. If there was a spoon or a knife missing, Abner often found
it in the ploughed field, where I had been using it as a kind of
pickaxe to dig my way through to China. No matter how muddy or
slippery the walking, I begged to go out. I had a feeling that I
wanted to skip like a lamb, fly like a bird, and dart like a squirrel,
and of course needed all out doors to do it in.

"Don't fall down," cried mamma from the window; "look out for the
ice."

And I answered back from under my red, quilted hood,--

"Well, if I do fall down and break me, mamma, you mus' pick up all my
little bones and glue 'em togedder. God glued 'em in the firs' place,
all but my tongue, and that's _nailed_ in."

Not nailed in very tight: I could move it fast enough.

And when the snow and ice were gone, I liked to wade ankle-deep in
the mud. Father had to buy me a pair of rubber boots, and that is the
first present I remember. They filled my soul with joy. When I said my
prayers I had one on each side of me, and when I slept it was with
both boots o