“Who cares?” said Candace,—“generate or unregenerate, it’s all one to me; I believe a man dat _acts_ as he does. Him as stands up for de poor,—him as pleads for de weak,—he’s my man. I’ll believe straight through anyting he’s a mind to put at me.” * * * * * [Sidenote: Mothers’ intuition.] Most mothers are instinctive philosophers. No treatise on the laws of nervous fluids could have taught Mrs. Scudder a better _rôle_ for this morning, than her tender gravity, and her constant expedients to break and ripple, by changing employments, that deep, deadly undercurrent of thoughts which she feared might undermine her child’s life. OLDTOWN FOLKS [Sidenote: Woman’s nature.] It is a man’s nature to act, to do, and when nothing can be done, to forget. It is a woman’s nature to hold on to what can only torture, and live all her despairs over. Women’s tears are their meat; men find the diet too salt, and won’t take it. * * * * * [Sidenote: Using knowledge.] “My forte lies in picking knowledge out of other folks and using it,” said Tina, joyously. “Out of the least little bit of ore that you dig up, I can make no end of gold-leaf.” * * * * * [Sidenote: Mothers’ work.] “Ain’t the world hard enough without fightin’ babies, I want to know? I hate to see a woman that don’t want to rock her own baby, and is contriving ways all the time to shirk the care of it. Why, if all the world was that way, there would be no sense in Scriptur’. ‘As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you,’ the Bible says, takin’ for granted that mothers were made to comfort children and give them good times when they are little.” * * * * * [Sidenote: The mother is every woman.] “There’s no saying,” said Miss Mehitable, “you never know what you may find in the odd corners of an old maid’s heart, when you fairly look into them. There are often unused hoards of maternal affection enough to set up an orphan asylum; but it’s like iron filings and a magnet,—you must try them with a live child, and if there is anything in ’em, you’ll find it out. That little object,” she said, looking over her shoulder at Tina, “made an instant commotion in the dust and rubbish of my forlorn old garret, brought to light a deal that I thought had gone to the moles and the bats long ago. She will do me good, I can feel, with her little pertnesses, and her airs and fancies. If you could know how chilly and lonesome an old house gets sometimes, particularly in autumn, when the equinoctial storm is brewing! A lively child is a godsend, even if she turns the whole house topsy-turvy.” * * * * * [Sidenote: Individuality.]