Playing on the roof

This is a story that I do not have any recollection of except that I heard my dad tell it on more than one occasion. It was the only time that I received a whipping from my father. On the farm that we lived at the time there was a smoke house which was a small building in which to smoke and store pork. My sister and brother who were older than me would help me to get on top of the roof so we could play. My dad told us a time or too that we were not to do that but they keep on doing it so he told them the next time I catch you on the roof I will give you a whipping. True to child like action they keep doing it but would watch for him and get down before he could see them. One day they got busy playing and by the time they saw him he had already saw us. They were just getting me down when he came upon them. He said he gave us all a whipping, but realized after that he should not have given me a whipping because I could not have gotten on the roof without their putting me there. While I don’t remember the incident it might have made such an impression on my young mind that I never did disobey my father and never remember receiving a whipping from him. I do have memory of many a whipping from my mother. My mother never gave spankings. That is far too tame a word for what she gave to us children. They were whippings and when she was through you knew you had been whipped.