But her father did spank her once . She got two bottles of pills out of his office and dared Alice Clow to see which of them could swallow all the pills first , and if her father had not happened in the nick of time those two children would have been corpses by night . As it was , they were both sick enough shortly after . But the doctor spanked Rilla then and there and he made such a thorough job of it that she never meddled with anything in his office afterwards . We hear a great deal nowadays of something that is called ` moral persuasion , ' but in my opinion a good spanking and no nagging afterwards is a much better thing . '' Rilla wondered viciously whether Susan meant to relate all the family spankings . But Susan had finished with the subject and branched off to another cheerful one . `` I remember little Tod MacAllister over-harbour killed himself that very way , eating up a whole box of fruitatives because he thought they were candy . It was a very sad affair . He was , '' said Susan earnestly , `` the very cutest little corpse I ever laid my eyes on . It was very careless of his mother to leave the fruitatives where he could get them , but she was well-known to be a heedless creature . One day she found a nest of five eggs as she was going across the fields to church with a brand new blue silk dress on . So she put them in the pocket of her petticoat and when she got to church she forgot all about them and sat down on them and her dress was ruined , not to speak of the petticoat . Let me see -- would not Tod be some relation of yours ? Your great grandmother West was a MacAllister . Her brother Amos was a MacDonaldite in religion . I am told he used to take the jerks something fearful . But you look more like your great grandfather West than the MacAllisters . He died of a paralytic stroke quite early in life . '' `` Did you see anybody at the store ? ''
asked Rilla desperately , in the faint hope XXXXX directing Susan 's conversation into more agreeable channels .
As about across after at in of than that with