s the plate--and one thing or
another. But mainly they don't do nothing."

"Well, then, what are they _for_?"

"Why, they're for _style_. Don't you know nothing?"

"Well, I don't _want_ to know no such foolishness as that. How is
servants treated in England? Do they treat 'em better 'n we treat our
niggers?"

"_No!_ A servant ain't nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs."

"Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New Year's
week, and Fourth of July?"

"Oh, just listen! A body could tell _you_ hain't ever been to England
by that. Why, Hare-l--why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from
year's end to year's end; never go to the circus, nor theater, nor
nigger shows, nor nowheres."

"Nor church?"

"Nor church."

"But _you_ always went to church."

Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man's servant. But
next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley was
different from a common servant, and _had_ to go to church whether he
wanted to or not, and set with the family, on account of its being the
law. But I didn't do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she
warn't satisfied. She says:

"Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a lot of lies?"

"Honest injun," says I.

"None of it at all?"

"None of it at all. 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, Jo?" 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 differen