, which, when it
was aroused, balked at nothing. She pointed at Jessy, then she
extended her small index-finger severely at Mrs. Ramsey.

"Mrs. Ramsey," said she, and she stood so straight that she looked
much taller, her blue eyes flashed like steel at the slinking ones of
the older woman, "I want to inquire why you sent this child to school
such a day as this in such a condition?"

Mrs. Ramsey again murmured something inarticulate and backed still
farther. Maria followed her quite into the room. A look of insolent
admiration became evident in the bloodshot eyes of the man beside the
stove. Maria had no false modesty when she was righteously incensed.
She would have said just the same before a room full of men.

"That child," she said, and she again pointed at Jessy, shivering in
her little, scanty frock--"that child came to school to-day without
any clothing under her dress; one of the coldest days of the year,
too. I don't see what you are thinking of, you, her own mother, to
let a child go out in such a condition! You ought to be ashamed of
yourself!"

Then the woman crimsoned with wrath and she found speech, the patois
of New England, instead of New Jersey, to which Maria was accustomed,
and which she understood. This woman, instead of half speaking, ran
all her words together in a coarse, nasal monotone.

"Hadn't nothin' to put on her," she said. "She'd outgrowed all she
had, hadn't nothin', mind your own business, go 'long home, where you
b'long."

Maria understood the last words, and she replied, fiercely, "I am not
going home one step until you promise me you'll get decent underwear
for this child to wear to school," said she, "and that you won't
allow her to go out-of-doors in this condition again. If you do, I'll
have you arrested."

The woman's face grew redder. She made a threatening movement towards
Maria, but the man beside the stove unexpectedly arose and slouched
between them, grinning and feeling in his pocket, whence he withdrew
two one-dollar notes.

"Here," he said, in a growling voice, which was nevertheless intended
to be ingratiating. "Go 'n' buy the young one somethin' to go to
school in. Don't yer mind."

Maria half extended her hand, then she drew it back. She looked at
the man, who exhaled whiskey as a fungus an evil perfume. She glanced
at Mrs. Ramsey.

"Is this man your father?" she asked of Jessy.

Immediately the boy burst into a peal of meaning laughter. The man
himself c