Kate never resorted to deceit, and almost never to untruths, unless hard pressed. While my own hypocrisies were subtle, hers were palpable. But I long cherished resentment for one offense--an unusual one with her: Mother had a bed of choice tulips--her special pride, our special temptation. Kate succumbed one day, picking nearly all of them, and with such short stems they were useless. Mother’s anger really frightened Kate, who declared, “Genie did it.” Though denying it, I probably acted guilty, for Mother believed her. (I always blushed and looked the culprit in school if a general accusation was made; and if any one rapped on the door and asked if a certain article had been found, I used to feel so uncomfortable it is a wonder I was not accused of having stolen it--self-conscious little snip that I was!) To punish me for my supposed falsehood Mother put red pepper on my tongue--a practice which a cousin had told her that she followed with her children. It was terrible, and was all the worse because I was innocent; though I’ve no doubt it was good for me, for I was more given to prevarication than was Sister. My tendency to exaggerate was the cause of my fibs; they were usually harmless ones; facts never seemed startling enough; I liked to embellish them. Then, too, I was always making mistakes about quantities or anything with figures or distances, and some of my misstatements should be set down to this weakness rather than to deliberate deception. In this very matter, years after, when speaking of this red-pepper punishment, I used to say that my mother put a teaspoonful of red pepper on my tongue. I can’t remember that any one ever questioned or corrected the statement. I probably told it mostly to children. It is only within a few years that, telling the story again, my own common sense, so late to develop, showed me that that must have been a gross exaggeration--a teaspoonful of cayenne pepper on a child’s tongue!--the red pepper had punished one lie that had never been told, but had given rise to one that I had gone on repeating until at last I had sense enough to see that it was too preposterous to be believed! Similarly in the matter of my weight: I had heard it mentioned--it was probably fifty pounds--but with my usual inaccuracy for figures I solemnly protested that I weighed five pounds, standing my ground even when corrected, till the absurdity of it was shown me.