"Seventeen!  My land!  Why, I wouldn't set out such a string as that, not if I _never_ got to glory.  It must take 'em a week."

"Shucks, they don't _all_ of 'em preach the same day—only _one_ of 'em."

"Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do?"

"Oh, nothing much.  Loll around, pass 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 n*****s?"

"_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 n***** 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, Joe?" 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?"