Not a lie in it," says I.
"Lay your hand on this book and say it."
I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it and
said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says:
"Well, then, I'll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I'll
believe the rest."
"What is it you won't believe, Joe?" says Mary Jane, stepping in with
Susan behind her. "It ain't right nor kind for you to talk so to him,
and him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you like to be
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, 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.
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