"Well, well," said the judge impatiently, "what have you to say about the
character of this little girl?"
Mrs. Snawdor shifted her last husband's hat from the right side of her
head to the left, and began confidentially:
"Well I'll tell you, Jedge, Nance ain't so bad as whut they make her out.
She's got her faults. I ain't claimin' she ain't. But she ain't got a
drop of meanness in her, an' that's more than I can say for some grown
folks present." Mrs. Snawdor favored Mr. Mason with such a sudden and
blighting glance that the janitor quailed visibly.
"Do you have trouble controlling her?" asked the judge.
"Nothin' to speak of. She's a awful good worker, Nance is, when you git
her down to it. But her trouble is runnin'. Let anything happen in the
alley, an' she's up an' out in the thick of it. I'm jes' as apt to come
home an' find her playin' ball with the baby in her arms, as not. But I
don't have to dress her down near as often as I used to."
"Then you wouldn't say she was a bad child?"
Mrs. Snawdor's emphatic negative was arrested in the utterance by Mr.
Mason's accusing eye.
"Well, I never seen no child that was a angel," she compromised.
"Does Nancy go to school?" the judge asked.
"Well, I was threatenin' her the other day, if she didn't behave herself,
I was goin' to start her in again."
"I ain't been sence Christmas," volunteered Nance, still sniffling.
"You shet yer mouth," requested Mrs. Snawdor with great dignity.
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