"That's always your way, Maim—always sailing in to help somebody before they're hurt. I hain't done nothing to him. He's told some stretchers, I reckon; and I said I wouldn't swallow it all; and that's every bit and grain I did say. I reckon he can stand a little thing like that, can't he?"
"I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas big, he's here in our house and a stranger, and it wasn't good of you to say it. If you was in his place, it would make you feel ashamed; and so you oughtn't to say a thing to another person that will make them feel ashamed."
"Why, Maim, he said——"
"It don't make no difference what he said—that ain't the thing. The thing is for you to treat him kind, and not be saying things to make him remember he ain't in his own country and amongst his own folks."
I says to myself, this is a girl that I'm letting that old reptle rob her of her money!
Then Susan she waltzed in; and if you'll believe me, she did give Hare-lip hark from the tomb!
Says I to myself, And this is another one that I'm letting him rob her of her money!
Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely again—which was her way—but when she got done there warn't hardly anything left o' poor Hare-lip. So she hollered.
"All right, then," says the other girls, "you just ask his pardon."
She done it, too. And she done it beautiful. She done it so beautiful it was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a thousand lies, so she could do it again.
I says to myself, this is another one that I'm letting him rob her of her money. And when she got through, they all jest laid theirselves out to make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends. I felt so ornery and low down and mean, that I says to myself, My mind's made up; I'll hive that money for them or bust.
So then I lit out—for bed, I said, meaning some time or another. When I got by myself, I went to thinking the thing over. I says to myself, shall I go
