For instance, I can still vividly recall the time when my city cousin Richard first came visiting on the farm. This Richard was a pale, supercilious brat who lived in New York City. As soon as he made sure that no one else on the farm had been similarly blessed, he sized us up for yokels and set about overawing us with the marvels of the metropolis. Grandma, busy round the kitchen range, listened silently for a while. But we who knew her well could see the storm warnings going up--the tightening lips and the dangerous gleam in her eye. Richard didn’t see anything, naturally. He finished describing the George Washington Bridge and went on to the skyscrapers. That did it. Grandma slammed a skillet down and fastened a harpy grip on Richard’s collar. “Come along, young man,” she said grimly. “You needn’t think you can pull _my_ leg!” And she wagged him off to the washstand, the rest of us trailing after in delighted horror. “Oliver--” Grandma addressed me, because I was already a gangling thirteen then--“Reach me down the lie soap!” I did so, gingerly, and before the bawling Richard knew what was happening he was sputtering through a haze of suds, his mouth thoroughly washed out with the strong soар. “Now!” said Grandma briskly, releasing him and stepping back. “Take a dipper of water, and then answer me: Were you or weren’t you exaggerating when you said there was buildings there ten miles high?” Richard opened and closed his mouth. He grew red in the face with effort. He said, “N... N... Yes, ma’am, I was exaggerating.” You could see that he was thunderstruck to find that he couldn’t do anything but tell the truth. Не had yet to learn what the rest of us knew and took for granted. Once anybody had his mouth washed out with Grandma’s lie soap, he could never again in this life speak a falsehood, however much he might want to. A quarter of an hour later, Grandma had mollified Richard with bread and jam and encouraged him to talk some more. She listened with keen interest as he described the Holland Tunnel, nodding her head occasionally and exclaiming, “My, my! Who would have thought it?” Now, you see, she knew that every word was true. If I’d been smarter--but maybe I’m still not smart, except in hindsight--I might have seen the shapе of things to come in that incident. But I wasn’t, and I didn’t. II