“Davy?” But Anne could say no more. She carried Dora home with a heavy heart. Her joy at finding the child safe and sound was drowned out in the pain caused by Davy’s behavior. The freak of shutting Dora up might easily have been pardoned. But Davy had told falsehoods … downright coldblooded falsehoods about it. That was the ugly fact and Anne could not shut her eyes to it. She could have sat down and cried with sheer disappointment. She had grown to love Davy dearly … how dearly she had not known until this minute … and it hurt her unbearably to discover that he was guilty of deliberate falsehood.
Marilla listened to Anne’s tale in a silence that boded no good Davy-ward; Mr. Barry laughed and advised that Davy be summarily dealt with. When he had gone home Anne soothed and warmed the sobbing, shivering Dora, got her her supper and put her to bed. Then she returned to the kitchen, just as Marilla came grimly in, leading, or rather pulling, the reluctant, cobwebby Davy, whom she had just found hidden away in the darkest corner of the stable.
She jerked him to the mat on the middle of the floor and then went and sat down by the east window. Anne was sitting limply by the west window. Between them stood the culprit. His back was toward Marilla and it was a meek, subdued, frightened back; but his face was toward Anne and although it was a little shamefaced there was a gleam of comradeship in Davy’s eyes, as if he knew he had done wrong and was going to be punished for it, but could count on a laugh over it all with Anne later on.
But no half hidden smile answered him in Anne’s gray eyes, as there might have done had it been only a question of mischief. There was something else … something ugly and repulsive.
“How could you behave so, Davy?” she asked sorrowfully.
Davy squirmed uncomfortably.
“I just did it for fun. Things have been so awful quiet here for so long that I thought it would be fun to give you folks a big scare. It was, too.”
In spite of fear and a little remorse Davy grinned over the recollection.
“But you told a falsehood about it, Davy,” said Anne, more sorrowfully than ever.
Davy looked puzzled.
“What’s a falsehood? Do you mean a whopper?”
“I mean a story that was not true.”
“Course I did,” said Davy frankly. “If I hadn’t you wouldn’t have been scared. I HAD to tell it.”
Anne was feeling the reaction from her fright and exertions. Davy’s impenitent attitude gave the finishing touch. Two big tears brimmed up in her eyes.
“Oh, Davy, how could you?” she said, with a quiver in her voice. “Don’t you know how wrong it was?”
Davy was aghast. Anne crying … he had made Anne cry! A flood of real remorse rolled like a wave over his warm little heart and engulfed it. He rushed to Anne, hurled himself into her lap, flung his arms around her neck, and burst into tears.
“I didn’t know it was wrong to tell whoppers,” he sobbed. “How did you expect me to know it was wrong? All Mr. Sprott’s children told them REGULAR every day, and cross their hearts too. I s’pose Paul Irving never tells whoppers and here I’ve been trying awful hard to be as good as him, but now I s’pose you’ll never love me again. But I think you might have told me it was wrong. I’m awful sorry I’ve made you cry, Anne, and I’ll never tell a whopper again.”
Davy buried his face in Anne’s shoulder and cried stormily. Anne, in a sudden glad flash of understanding, held him tight and looked over his curly thatch at Marilla.
“He didn’t know it was wrong to tell falsehoods, Marilla. I think we must forgive him for that part of it this time if he will promise never to say what isn’t true again.”
“I never will, now that I know it’s bad,” asseverated Davy between sobs. “If you ever catch me telling a whopper again you can …” Davy groped mentally for a suitable penance … “you can skin me alive, Anne.”
“Don’t say ‘whopper,’ Davy … say ‘falsehood,’” said the schoolma’am.
“Why?” queried Davy, settling comfortably down and looking up with a tearstained, investigating face. “Why ain’t whopper as good as falsehood? I want to know. It’s just as big a word.”
“It’s slang; and it’s wrong for little boys to use slang.”
“There’s an awful lot of things it’s wrong to do,” said Davy with a sigh. “I never s’posed there was so many. I’m sorry it’s wrong to tell whop … falsehoods, ‘cause it’s awful handy, but since it is I’m never going to tell any more. What are you going to do to me for telling them this time? I want to know.” Anne looked beseechingly at Marilla.
“I don’t want to be too hard on the child,” said Marilla. “I daresay nobody ever did tell him it was wrong to tell lies, and those Sprott children were no fit companions for him. Poor Mary was too sick to train him properly and I presume you couldn’t expect a six-year-old child to know things like that by instinct. I suppose we’ll just have to assume he doesn’t know ANYTHING right and begin at the beginning. But he’ll have to be punished for shutting Dora up, and I can’t think of any way except to send him to bed without his supper and we’ve done that so often. Can’t you suggest something else, Anne? I should think you ought to be able to, with that imagination you’re always talking of.”
“But punishments are so horrid and I like to imagine only pleasant things,” said Anne, cuddling Davy. “There are so many unpleasant things in the world already that there is no use in imagining any more.”
In the end Davy was sent to bed, as usual, there to remain until noon next day. He evidently did some thinking, for when Anne went up to her room a little later she heard him calling her name softly. Going in, she found him sitting up in bed, with his elbows on his knees and his chin propped on his hands.
“Anne,” he said solemnly, “is it wrong for everybody to tell whop … falsehoods? I want to know?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Is it wrong for a grownup person?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” said Davy decidedly, “Marilla is bad, for SHE tells them. And she’s worse’n me, for I didn’t know it was wrong but she does.”
“Davy Keith, Marilla never told a story in her life,” said Anne indignantly.
“She did so. She told me last Tuesday that something dreadful WOULD happen to me if I didn’t say my prayers every night. And I haven’t said them for over a week, just to see what would happen … and nothing has,” concluded Davy in an aggrieved tone.
Anne choked back a mad desire to laugh with the conviction that it would be fatal, and then earnestly set about saving Marilla’s reputation.
“Why, Davy Keith,” she said solemnly, “something dreadful HAS happened to you this very day.”
Davy looked sceptical.
“I s’pose you mean being sent to bed without any supper,” he said scornfully, “but THAT isn’t dreadful. Course, I don’t like it, but I’ve been sent to bed so much since I come here that I’m getting used to it. And you don’t save anything by making me go without supper either, for I always eat twice as much for breakfast.”
“I don’t mean your being sent to bed. I mean the fact that you told a falsehood today. And, Davy,” … Anne leaned over the footboard of the bed and shook her finger impressively at the culprit … “for a boy to tell what isn’t true is almost the worst thing that could HAPPEN to him … almost the very worst. So you see Marilla told