I've half supported the family myself sewin' on wrappers, and I've got a right to have my say.

My sister ain't goin' to suffer! Oh, my God, what's goin' to become of her?
Poor Eva, poor Eva! Eighteen dollars a week; that's as much as Andrew ever earned.

Oh, it was awful, it was awful! There, when I got in there, she had a--knife, the--carving knife, and she had Amabel's hair all gathered up in one hand, and her head tipped back, and poor old mother Tenny was holding her arms, and screamin', and it was all I could do to get the knife away," and Fanny stripped up her sleeves, and showed a glancing cut on her arm.
"She did that before I got it away from her," she said.

"Think of it, my own sister! My own sister, who always thought so much of me, and would have had her own fingers cut to the bone before she would have let any one touch me or Ellen! Oh, poor Eva, poor Eva! What is goin' to become of her, what is goin' to become of her ?" Mrs.Zelotes went out of the house with a jerk of angry decision, and presently returned with a bottle half full of whiskey.
"Here," said she to Ellen, "you pour out a quarter of a tumbler of this, and fill it up with hot water.

I ain't goin' to have the whole family in an asylum because Jim Tenny has run off with another woman, if I can help it!" The old woman's steady force of will asserted itself over the hysterical nature of her daughter-in-law.