"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.