"I told you I was just passin' through and Mis' Smith called me in."
"Don't you know nothin' about it—nothin'!"
"Nothin'. I've told you all I know. Can I take my teeth out now?"
"No, Barbara; keep your teeth in till we've finished with you. A person can't understand a word you say with your teeth out, you gum your words so."
"But they hurt me; they don't fit. I ain't had a new pair for twenty years and my jaws've shrunk."
"Well, keep 'em in fer a while. They won't shrink any more fer a minit. Did they look like relations?"
"Relations!" said a big, placid-looking woman who was knitting quietly. "Drusilla ain't got no relations. She ain't never had none."
"She must have had some at one time. Everybody has relations—although some people I know, had rather be without them than recognize the kind they got." The sour voiced old lady directed her tones toward the seat next to her.
"If you're a meanin' me, Caroline, I want to tell you my relations is just as good as your'n, though we don't throw 'em down everybody's throat as some folks I know."
"No," said another; "Drusilla has no family; she told me so herself. One day I was telling her about my family, about my father who was so well known in the State, and my brother who became the great—"