what fibs they were, and my old grandmother cured me of it—how, do you think? My parents had talked, and cried, and punished, but still did I forget as you. Then said the dear old grandmother, ‘I shall help you to remember, and put a check on this unruly part,’ with that she drew out my tongue and snipped the end with her scissors till the blood ran. That was terrible, you may believe, but it did me much good, because it was sore for days, and every word I said came so slowly that I had time to think. After that I was more careful, and got on better, for I feared the big scissors. Yet the dear grandmother was most kind to me in all things, and when she lay dying far away in Nuremberg, she prayed that little Fritz might love God and tell the truth.”
“I never had any grandmothers, but if you think ‘t will cure me, I’ll let you snip my tongue,” said Nat, heroically, for he dreaded pain, yet did wish to stop fibbing.
Mr. Bhaer smiled, but shook his head.
“T have a better way than that, I tried it once before’ and it worked well. See now, when you tell a lie I will not punish you, but you shall punish me.”
“ How?” asked Nat, startled at the idea.
“You shall ferule me in the good old-fashioned way, I seldom do it myself, but it may make you remember better to give me pain than to feel it yourself.”
“ Strike you? Oh, I could n’t!” cried Nat.
“Then mind that tripping tongue of thine. I have no wish to be hurt, but I would gladly bear much pain to cure this fault.”
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This suggestion made such an impression on Nat, that for a long time he set a watch upon his lips, and was desperately accurate, for Mr. Bhaer judged rightly, that love of him would be more powerful with Nat than fear for himself. But alas! one sad day Nat was off his guard, and when peppery Emil threatened to thrash him, if it was he who had run over his garden and broken down his best hills of corn, Nat declared he did n’t, and then was ashamed to own up that he did do it, when Jack was chasing him the night before.
He thought no one would find it out, but Tommy happened to see him, and when Emil spoke of it a day or two later, Tommy gave his evidence, and Mr. Bhaer heard it. School was over, and they were all standing about in the hall, and Mr. Bhaer had just sat down on the straw settee, to enjoy his frolic with Teddy; but when he heard Tommy, and saw Nat turn scarlet, and look at him with a frightened face, he put the little boy down, saying, “Go to thy mother, biibchen, I will come soon,” and taking Nat by the hand led him into the school, and shut the door.
The boys looked at one another in silence for a minute, then Tommy slipped out and peeping in at the half-closed blinds, beheld a sight that quite bewildered him. Mr. Bhaer had just taken down the long rule that hung over his desk, so seldom used that it was covered with dust.
“My eye! he’s going to come down heavy on Nat this time. Wish I had n’t told,” thought goodnatured Tommy, for to be feruled was the deepest disgrace at this school.
You remember what I told you last time?” said Mr. Bhaer, sorrowfully, not angrily.
“Yes; but please don’t make me, I can’t bear it;” cried Nat, backing up against the door with both hands behind him, and a face full of distress.
‘Why don’t he up and take it like a man? I would,” thought Tommy, though his heart beat fast at the sight.
“T shall keep my word, and you must remember to tell the truth. Obey me, Nat, take this and give me six good strokes.”
Tommy was so staggered by this last speech that he nearly tumbled down the bank, but saved himself, and hung on to the window ledge, staring in with eyes as round as the stuffed owl’s on the chimney-piece.
“Nat took the rule, for when Mr. Bhaer spoke in that tone every one obeyed him, and, looking as scared and guilty as if about to stab his master, he gave two feeble blows on the broad hand held out to him. Then he stopped and looked up half-blind with tears, but Mr. Bhaer said steadily, —
“ Go on, and strike harder.”
As if seeing that it must be done, and eager to have the hard task soon over, Nat drew his sleeve across his eyes and gave two more quick hard strokes that reddened the hand, yet hurt the giver more.
“Ts n’t that enough?” he asked in a breathless sort of tone.
“Two more,” was all the answer, and he gave them, hardly seeing where they fell, then threw the rule all across the room, and hugging the kind hand in both his own, laid his face down on it sobbing out in a wassion of love, and shame, and penitence, —
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“Twill remember! Oh! I will!”
Then Mr. Bhaer put an arm about him, and said in @ tone as compassionate as it had just now been irm, —
“T think you will. Ask the dear God to help you, and try to spare us both another scene like this.”
Tommy saw no more, for he crept back to the hall, looking so excited and sober that the boys crowded round him to ask what was being done to Nat.
In a most impressive whisper Tommy told them,’ and they looked as if the sky was about to fall, for this reversing the order of things almost took their breath away.
** He made me do the same thing once,” said Emil, as if confessing a crime of the deepest dye.
“And you hit him? dear old Father Bhaer? By thunder, I’d just like to see you do it now!” said Ned, collaring Emil in a fit of righteous wrath.
“It was ever so long ago. I’d rather have my head cut off than do it now,” and Emil mildly laid Ned on his back instead of cuffing him, as he would have felt it his duty to do on any less solemn occasion.
“ How could you?” said Demi, appalled at the idea.
“Twas hopping mad at the time, and thought I should n’t mind a bit, rather like it perhaps. But when I’d hit Uncle one good crack, every thing he had ever done for me came into my head all at once somehow, and I couldn’t go on. No, sir! if he’d laid me down and walked on me, I would n’t have minded, I felt so mean;” and Emil gave himself a good thump in the chest to express his sense of remorse for the past.
“Nat’s crying like any thing, and feels no end
of sorry, I can tell you,” said Tommy, who had been watching the door.
“Well, I should think so. I’d feel like a brute,” muttered Jack, doing a little remorseful thumping on his own account.
“I’m going to tell him I won’t lick him if he don’t lick me when I tell,” cried Ned, with sudden resolution.
“Hallo! what’s up?” asked Emil, as Ned burst into the room, looking much excited.
“I say, Nat, I’ll let you off the licks if you’ll let me off when I own up. I can’t stand being whacked by you, old fellow,” said Ned, slapping Nat on the back in a manly way, which was meant to hide the apology as well as to atone for past injuries.
“ ‘Tis n’t hard now you’ve begun. I couldn’t tell when it was my turn to do it,” said Nat, gratefully squeezing Ned’s hand and Rory’s tail together, as he sat on the floor beside his friend.
“When is your turn then?” asked Tommy, who was not quite clear about the matter, for Mr. Bhaer had not finished his confessions when he fled.
“Why, when I tell anything that ain’t so, or try to sneak out of a scrape, or let another fellow be punished for me. Father Bhaer says I must stop it, and I’m going to try.”
“Hung if I don’t join the Temperance Society too,” said Jack, who was always imitating his father.
“And I,” “And I,” cried the others, who liked to follow a good example, and who admired and loved Mr. Bhaer very much.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll.
We’ll have a club,” said Stuffy, coming out of a cloud of smoke in the corner where he had been trying to swallow himself.
“Twill call it the ‘Lying-in Check’;” proposed Demi, feeling that such a name would be a great protection if the members should happen to be tempted to depart from the truth.
“All right! Now, Jack, you be President, and we’ll all join, and punish any one! the way we do Nat.”
“Nat won’t like it,” said Tommy, who thought the club rather a rough one for a little chap like Nat.
“We’ll offer to take our lickings all round, and that’ll be fair. I know Naisy won’t mind, will you, old top?” asked Jack, giving Nat a gentle shake, and a look full of the affectionate respect every one felt for the youngest member of the flock.
“I’d like it better than being poked fun at, or sent to Coventry,” said Nat, brightening as the plan was explained to him.
Then they all crowded round Nat, promising to be kind and gentle, to watch one another, and help one another, and if anybody told a “whopper,” as Ned elegantly expressed it, to beg the liar’s pardon, and stand by the truth.
“It’s a happy day for me, to see my children doing so noble well,” said Mr. Bhaer, coming in after a long walk with Daisy.