“Well, but Lily, the little beggar must tell the truth—­”

“Mr. Curtis, Jacky didn’t say anything but what you or me would say a dozen times a day.  He just told her he hadn’t a library book out, when he had.  Seems he forgot to bring it back, so, ’course, he just said he hadn’t any book.  Well, this teacher, she put the lie onto him.  It’s a vulgar word, ‘lie.’  And as for hell, they say society people don’t believe there is such a place any more.”

When he and his little son walked away (Jacky dragging his magnificent sled), Maurice was nervously anxious to counteract such views.

“Jacobus,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something:  Big men never say anything that isn’t so!  Do you get on to that?” (In his own mind he added, “I’m a sweet person to tell him that!”) “Promise me you’ll never say anything that isn’t just exactly so,” said Maurice.

“Yes, sir,” said Jacky.  “Say, Mr. Curtis, have you got teeth you can take out?” When Maurice said, rather absently, that he had not, Jacky’s dismay was pathetic.  “Why, maw can do that,” he said, reproachfully.  It was the first flaw in his idol.  It took several minutes to recover from the shock of disappointment; then he said:  “Lookee here!” He paused beside a hydrant, and with his mittened hand broke off a long icicle, held it up and turned it about so that the sun flashed on it.  “Handsome, ain’t it?” he asked, timidly.

Maurice said yes, it was “handsome";—­“but suppose you say ’isn’t it’ instead of ’ain’t it.’  ‘Ain’t’ is not a nice word.  And remember what I told you about telling the truth.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jacky, and trudged along, pulling his sled with one hand and carrying his icicle in the other.

After this paternal effort, Maurice stood in the snow watching the crowd of children—­red-cheeked, shrill-voiced—­sliding down Winpole Hill and yelling and snow-balling each other as they pulled their sleds up to the top of the slope again.  It was during one of these panting tugs uphill, that Jacky saw fit to slap a fellow coaster, a little, snub-nosed girl with a sniffling cold in her head, and all muffled up in dirty scarves.  Instantly Maurice, striding in among the children, took his son by the arm, and said, sharply: 

“Young man, apologize! Quick! Or I’ll take you home!”

Jacky gaped.  “Pol’gize?”

“Say you’re sorry!  Out with it.  Tell the little girl you’re sorry you hit her.”

“But I ain’t,” Jacky explained, anxiously; “an’ you said I mustn’t say what ain’t so.”

“Well, tell her you won’t do it again,” Maurice commanded, evading, as perplexed fathers must, moral contradictions.

Jacky, bewildered, said to his howling playmate, “I don’t like you, but I won’t hit you again, less I have to; then I’ll lick the tar out of you!” He paused, rummaged in his pocket, produced a horrid precious little gray lump of something, and handed it to her.  “Gum,” he said, briefly.