I was six years old, my sister, Sally Kay, was a submissive three-year-old girl. For some reasons, I thought we needed to earn some money. I decided1 we should "hire out" as maids. We visited the neighbors, offering to clean houses for them for a quater cents. Reasonable as our offer was, there were no takers. But one neighbor telephoned my mother to let her know what Mary Alice and Sally Kay were doing.
Mother had just hung up the phone when we came first into the back door into the kitchen of our apartement. "Girls," mother asked, "why were you two going around the neighborhood telling people you would clean their houses?" Mother wasn't angry with us. In fact, we learned2 afterwards she was amused that we had came up with such an idea.
But, for some reason, we both denied having done any such thing. Shocked and terribly hurt that her dear little girls could be such "boldfaced liars3" . Mother then told us that Mrs. Jones had just called and told her we had been to her house and said we would clean it for a quater cents .
Faced with the truth, we admitted what we had done. Mother said we have fibed, we have not told the truth. She was sure that we knew better. She tried to explain why a fib hurt, but she didn't feel that we really understood.
