treated so?” “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, Mam, 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 reptile 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, shal