" This was rather too glaring a lie, and Ephraim must have
forgotten for the moment that Tom Green had been absent from home for
several days; and cunning as he was, for once he had, as the saying is,
"overshot his mark." "Silas Stinson," said my aunt, "will you allow
that boy to sit there and tell such lies in your hearing?" His father
saw that there was no help for it, he must at any rate make a show
of authority; and looking at his hopeful son with a very solemn
countenance, he addressed him in the language of Scripture, saying "O!
Ephraim what shall I do unto thee?" "It wouldn't take me long to find
out what to do, if he was mine," said Aunt Lucinda. "I'd take a good
birch rod, and give him such a tanning, that he wouldn't cut up another
clothes-line in a hurry, I'll promise you." "Upon the whole I think your
counsel is wise, Cousin Lucinda," replied his father, "for the wisest
man of whom we have any account says, 'Foolishness is bound up in the
heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from
him,' and the same wise man adds in another place: 'He that spares the
rod spoils the child.
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