human
Why, Cousin Tryphena, it's like a story-book? You're going to _enjoy_ having those people. The woman is as nice as she can be, and that's the brightest little boy! He's as smart as a whip!
gpt
I don't sleep much better nights now I've done it! Then facing me,
human
I hadn't ought to have brought them up here! I just did it to please myself! Once I saw 'em ... I wanted 'em!
gpt
You ain't seen what I've seen.
human
Why, was it as bad as that paper said?
gpt
Child, it was nothing like what the paper said...it was so much worse!
human
Oh ...
gpt
I was five days looking for her...they'd moved from the address the paper give. And, in those five days, I saw so many others..._so many others_... her face twitched. She put one lean old hand before her eyes. Then, quite unexpectedly, she cast out at me an exclamation which made my notion of the pretty picturesqueness of her adventure seem cheap and trivial and superficial.
human
Jombatiste is right! she cried to me with a bitter fierceness:
gpt
Everything is wrong! Everything is wrong! If I can do anything, I'd ought to do it to help them as want to smash everything up and start over! What good does it do for me to bring up here just these three out of all I saw ... Her voice broke into pitiful, self-excusing quavers,
human
You didn't find the little boy in the asylum?
gpt
He was dead before I got there,
human
Oh ... ! I said again, shocked, and then tentatively,
gpt
Had he ...?
human
I don't know whether he had or not, said Cousin Tryphena,
gpt
I didn't ask. I didn't want to know. I know too much now! She looked up fixedly at the mountain line, high and keen against the winter sky.
human
Jombatiste is right, she said again unsparingly,
gpt
I hadn't ought to be enjoying them ... their father ought to be alive and with them. He was willing to work all he could, and yet he ... here I've lived for fifty-five years and never airned my salt a single day. What was I livin' on? The stuff these folks ought to ha' had to eat ... them and the Lord only knows how many more besides! Jombatiste is right ... what I'm doin' now is only a drop in the bucket!
human
That's Sigurd ...I _knew_ that cat would scratch him!