human
THAT'S Minervy Jones. She is one type of her race. Mammy is another. Now we'll see what she'll buy. I'll venture to say that every penny she gets from Joshua's life-insurance will be spent upon clothes for herself and those children.
gpt
And _I_ started the idea,
human
Oh, no, you did not. She would have thought of it as soon as she was over her screaming, only you stopped the screaming a little sooner, for which we ought to be grateful to you. She is only one of many more exactly like her.
gpt
Do you mean to tell me that there are many as heedless and foolish as she is?
human
Dozens. Ask Harrison about some of them.
gpt
Well, I never saw anything like her, cried Polly, indignantly.
human
I think she is perfectly heartless.
gpt
Oh, no, she isn't. She simply can't hold more than one idea at a time. Just now it's the display she can make with her insurance money. They insure each other and everything insurable, and go half naked in order to do so. The system is perfectly dreadful, but no one can stop them. Probably every man and woman on the place knows exactly what she will receive and half a dozen will come forward with money to lend her, sure of being paid back by this insurance company. It all makes me positively sick, but there is no use trying to control them in that direction. I don't wonder Daddy Neil often says they were better off in the old days when a master looked after their well-being.