kept over
him. She called him an infamous black wretch, in tones befitting her
words, but I could not get her to leave him even so long as her own
health demanded.

There came nights, however, as the disease ran its course, when she had
to give up from sheer lack of force. Then she permitted me to watch,
though even at these times she often broke from sleep to come and be
assured that the worthless black hound had not changed for the worse.

One dim, early morning, when she thought I had gone, after my night's
watch, I returned softly to the half-opened door with a forgotten
injunction about the medicines. All night Clem had babbled languidly of
many things, of "a hunded thousan' hatchin' aigs," and "a thousan'
brillion dollahs," of "Mahstah Jere" and "Little Miss," of a visiting
Cousin Peavey whom he had been obliged to "whup" for his repeated
misdemeanors; and darkly and often had he whispered, so low I could
scarcely hear it, of an enemy that was entering the room with a fell
design. "_Tha'_ he is--he go'n' a' sprinkle snake-dust in mah
boots--tha' he is--watch _out_!"

He still maundered weakly as I reached the door, but it was not this
that detained me at its threshold. It was Miss Caroline, who had
actually knelt at his side. At first I thought she wept over one of his
blue-black hands, which she clung eagerly to with both her own. Then I
saw that there seemed to be no tears--yet silently, almost impassively,
she gave me a sense of hopeless grief that I thought no outburst of
weeping could have done.

I wondered wildly then if her fashion of speech for Clem might not mask
some real affection for him. But this was unsatisfying. On the spot I
gave up all wondering forever about Miss Caroline. I have ever since
constrained myself to accept her without question, even in situations of
difficulty. There is so much vain knowledge.

That day, too, was the bad day when news came that Little Miss had been
stricken with the same dread pneumonia. When she told me this, Miss
Caroline had a look in her eyes that I suspect must often have been
there in the first half of the sixties. It was calm enough, but there
was a resistance in it that promised to be unbreakable. And to my
never-ending wonder she seemed still to be more concerned about Clem
than about her daughter.

"Will you go to her?" I asked.

She smiled. "That could hardly be afforded just now."

"You could manage it, I think. Clem has some money due from me.