"Oh," said Mrs. Nesbit, "I dare say it's that Cripps family, that's squatted in the pine woods. A most miserable set—all of them liars and thieves! If I had known who it was, I'm sure I shouldn't have let Milly go over. Such families oughtn't to be encouraged; there oughtn't a thing to be done for them; we shouldn't encourage them to stay in the neighborhood. They always will steal from off the plantations, and corrupt the negroes, and get drunk, and everything else that's bad. There's never a woman of decent character among them, that ever I heard of; and, if you were my daughter, I shouldn't let you go near them."
"Well, I'm not your daughter, thank fortune!" said Nina, whose graces always rapidly declined in controversies with her aunt, "and so I shall do as I please. And I don't know what you pious people talk so for; for Christ went with publicans and sinners, I'm sure."
"Well," said Aunt Nesbit, "the Bible says we mustn't cast pearls before swine; and, when you've lived to be as old as I am, you'll know more than you do now. Everybody knows that you can't do anything with these people. You can't give them Bibles nor tracts; for they can't read. I've tried it, sometimes, visiting them, and talking to them; but it didn't do them any good. I always thought there ought to be a law passed to make 'em all slaves, and then there would be somebody to take care of them."
"Well, I can't see," said Nina, "how it's their fault. There isn't any school where they could send their children, if they wanted to learn; and, then, if they want to work, there's nobody who wants to hire them. So, what can they do?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Aunt Nesbit, in that tone which generally means I don't care. "All I know is, that I want them to get away from the neighborhood. Giving to them is just like putting into a bag with holes. I'm sure I put myself to a great inconvenience on their account to-day; for, if there's anything I do hate, it is having things irregular. And to-day is the day for clear-starching the caps—and such a good, bright, sunny day!—and to-morrow, or any other day of the week, it may rain. Always puts me all out to have things that I've laid out to do put out of their regular order. I'd been willing enough to have sent over some old things; but why they must needs take Milly's time, just as if the funeral couldn't have got ready without her! These funerals are always miserable drunken times with them! And, then, who knows, she may catch the small-pox, or something or other. There's never any knowing what these people die of."
"They die of just such things as we do," said Nina. "They have that in common with us, at any rate."
"Yes; but there's no reason for risking our lives, as I know of—especially for such people—when it don't do any good."
"Why, aunt, what do you know against these folks? Have you ever known of their doing anything wicked?"
"Oh, I don't know that I know anything against this family in particular; but I know the whole race. These squatters—I've know them ever since I was a girl in Virginia. Everybody that knows anything knows exactly what they are. There isn't any help for them, unless, as I said before, they were made slaves; and then they could be kept decent. You may go to see them, if you like, but I don't want my arrangements to be interfered with on their account."
Mrs. Nesbit was one of those quietly-persisting people, whose yielding is like the stretching of an India-rubber band, giving way only to a violent pull, and going back to the same place when the force is withdrawn. She seldom refused favors that were urged with any degree of importunity; not because her heart was touched, but simply because she seemed not to have force enough to refuse; and whatever she granted was always followed by a series of subdued lamentations over the necessity which had wrung them from her.