Her aunt stared at her. “Good gracious! You didn't go to that awful house, a young girl like you?” she said, and her prim cheeks burned. “Why, that man's livin' right there with Mrs. Ramsey, and her husband winking at it! They are awful people!”
“I would have gone anywhere to get that poor child clothed decently,” said Maria.
“But you wouldn't take his money!”
“I rather guess I wouldn't!”
“Well, I don't blame you, but I don't see what is going to be done.”
“I don't,” said Maria, helplessly. She reflected how she had disposed already of her small stipend, and would not have any more for some time, and how her own clothing no more than sufficed for her.
“I can't give her a thing,” said Aunt Maria. “I'm wearin' flannels myself that are so patched there isn't much left of the first of 'em, and it's just so with the rest of my clothes. I'm wearin' a petticoat made out of a comfortable my mother made before Henry was married. It was quilted fine, and had a small pattern, if it is copperplate, but I don't darse hold my dress up only just so. I wouldn't have anybody know it for the world. And I know Eunice ain't much better off. They had that big doctor's bill, and I know she's patched and darned so she'd be ashamed of her life if she fell down on the ice and broke a bone. I tell you what it is, those other Ramseys ought to do something. I don't care if they are such distant relations, they ought to do something.”
After supper Maria and her aunt went into the other side of the house, and Aunt Maria, who had been waxing fairly explosive, told the tale of poor little Jessy Ramsey going to school with no undergarments.
“It's a shame!” said Eunice, who was herself nervous and easily aroused to indignation. She sat up straight and the hollows on her thin cheeks blazed, and her thin New England mouth tightened.
“George Ramsey ought to do something if he is earning as much as they say he is,” said Aunt Maria.