Mr. Raleigh said he was sorry to learn I had been a naughty girl, and hoped that the whipping would do me a lot of good. But he did not speak very convincingly. In fact, he acted as though he was pleased that I had been given a smarting bottom and hoped it would happen again soon.

Since I had always been whipped by my parents, and since most of the other girls in the neighborhood I knew also got their bare bottoms whipped by their parents, including many who were much older than me, I did not think it so strange or unusual. It was embarrassing, though, because of the shameful way it was given to me, but that was all. I could not understand why there should be anything about punishment to interest anyone.

But it did interest Mr. Raleigh, and he never lost an opportunity to talk about it to my parents.

“Don't you find it rather hard to give a whipping to a girl as big as Lucille?” he asked Mother one day.

“What do you mean?” asked Mother curiously.

“Doesn't she struggle, and protest, and try to break away from you?” asked Mr. Raleigh.

“Not Lucille,” answered Mother emphatically. “And she'd better not try cutting up any such didoes as that, either. She knows that when she's got a licking coming to her, the best thing she can do is to remain still and take it. If she doesn't, I reckon her paw will get the strap and make her sing another tune pretty quick.”

Although I could not understand anyone being interested in the fact that I received a whipping when I did something my parents did not like, I did find it terribly embarrassing to hear Mother talking about it in front of me to someone who was practically a stranger to us. But Mr. Raleigh seemed to gain her confidence and get her to tell him many things about why I was whipped and how often I was given a well-tanned bottom.