mus an' some catnip, an' Ah do all th' doctahin' tha's
advisable." All this he brought out with difficulty, for his breathing
was by no means free.

"He's up to his tricks," said Miss Caroline, contemptuously, to me.
Then, to Clem, seeming to draw courage from my presence, "You be quiet,
there, you lazy, black good-for-nothing, or I'll get some one here to
wear you out!" And Clem was again the vanquished.

"Pneumonia," said Young Doc. "Bad," he added as we stepped into the
drawing-room. "Take lots of care."

I thought it as well that Young Doc had come. Old Doc, though well
liked, boasted that all any man of his profession needed, really, were
calomel and a good knife. Young Doc had always seemed to be subtler.
Anyway, he was of a later generation. I learned that Old Doc had scorned
to make the call, believing that a "nigger" could not suffer from
anything but yellow fever or cracked shins. For this reason he became
genuinely interested in Clem's case as it was later reported to him by
Young Doc.

To the rest of Little Arcady the case was also of interest. Sympathy had
heretofore been with Clem, because Miss Caroline paid him no wages, and
was believed to take what he earned from other people.

Now, however, an important number of persons veered--in wonder if not in
absolute sympathy. That the woman should watch and nurse the black
fellow, apparently with perfect single-heartedness, was not to be
squared with any known laws of human association. "Nursing a nigger in
her own house with her own hands," was the fashion of describing this
untoward spectacle. It was like taking a sick horse into your house, and
making play that it was human. The already puzzled town was further
mystified, and it is probable that Miss Caroline fell a little in public
esteem. Her course was not thought to be edifying. She could have sent
Clem to the county poor farm, where he would have been seen to, after a
fashion good enough for one of his color, by the proper authorities.

My own bewilderment was at first hardly less than the town's. Had Miss
Caroline suddenly changed her manner toward Clem, showing regret,
however belated, for her previous abuse of him, I should have
understood. That would have been a simple case of awakened sensibility.
But she continued to disparage him to his face and to me. She was
venomous--scurrilous in her abuse. Yet only with the greatest difficulty
could I persuade her to let me share the watch that must be