allow to LIVE among 'em--to stay a menet after
that!"

Jim laid down his pipe and gazed at his sister with stony deliberation.
"And--what--do--you--kalkilate--to make by all that?" he said with
scornful distinctness.

"Why, jest to show 'em we HAVE got money, and could buy 'em all up if
we wanted to," returned Maggie, sticking boldly to her guns, albeit
with a vague conviction that her fire was weakened through elevation,
and somewhat alarmed at the deliberation of the enemy.

"And you mean to say they don't know it now," he continued with slow
derision.

"No," said Maggie. "Why, theer's that new school-marm over at Logport,
you know, Jim, the one that wanted to take your picter in your boat for
a young smuggler or fancy pirate or Eyetalian fisherman, and allowed
that you'r handsomed some, and offered to pay you for sittin'--do you
reckon SHE'D believe you owned the land her schoolhouse was built on.
No! Lots of 'em don't. Lots of 'em thinks we're poor and low
down--and them ez doesn't, thinks"--

"What?" asked her brother sharply.

"That we're MEAN."

The quick color came to Jim's cheek. "So," he said, facing her
quickly, "for the sake of a lot of riff-raff and scum that's drifted
here around us--jest for the sake of cuttin' a swell before
them--you'll go out among the hounds ez allowed your mother was a
Spanish nigger or a kanaka, ez called your father a pirate and
landgrabber, ez much as allowed he was shot by some one or killed
himself a purpose, ez said you was a heathen and a looney because you
didn't go to school or church along with their trash, ez kept away from
Maw's sickness ez if it was smallpox, and Dad's fun'ral ez if he was a
hoss-thief, and left you and me to watch his coffin on the marshes all
night till the tide kem back. And now you--YOU that jined hands with
me that night over our father lyin' there cold and despised--ez if he
was a dead dog thrown up by the tide--and swore that ez long ez that
tide ebbed and flowed it couldn't bring you to them, or them to you
agin! You now want--what? What? Why, to go and cast your lot among
'em, and live among 'em, and join in their God-forsaken holler
foolishness, and--and--and"--

"Stop! It's a lie! I DIDN'T say that. Don't you dare to say it!"
said the girl, springing to her feet, and facing her brother in turn,
with flashing eyes.

For a moment the two stared at each other--it might have been as in a
mirror, so perfectly were their pass