who acted also as
scrubwoman once a week, Nellie's health not being equal to the weekly
cleaning required in a tidy household.) "Did you see it? I began to
sniff the minute I struck the hall. My word! I knowed it. Then I begun
to hear the groans--_'O-o-ah! O-o-ah!'_ mumbling, grumbling kind of
groans--I didn't need anything more to get next to that situation, no,
ma'am. Mrs. Kane come tumbling down-stairs. You know her, Miss Patsy,
Tim Kane's widow, a fair-to-middling laundress and next door to a fool
about everything else. Jest the kind that gits a good husband like
Timothy and then fools away the money he leaves her and has to come on
the wash tub. Down-stairs she comes--wild! The poor woman, they'd seen
her fall outside, and Miss Mercy and she'd taken her in on a mattress
with Amos to help; Amos wanted to call the amberlance, but Miss Mercy
said no, they'd take her to the police; so they three took the poor
creature into the house. And 'Oh, hear her groan!' I said, yes, she was
easy to hear. I guess Amos felt all right; but you know niggers are
biddable, and whatever they think, the creatures do like they're told.

"Well, I walked up-stairs. She was there in the guest chamber on one of
the twin beds with the flowery card, 'Sleep gently in this quiet room,'
etcetery, over the towsledest head and _sech_ skirts! She'd been having
a time for sure. Herself had put a wet ice bandage on the woman's head
and a hot-water bag to her feet, and she was a-laying her hands, her own
pretty, soft, little, white, trembling hands, to her awful shoes, but
says _I_:

"'You _stop_! Don't you tech her!'

"'I must,' says she; 'they're soaked.'

"'Don't you see what's the matter of her?' say I. 'She's dead drunk!'

"I reckoned she'd deny it. Not a bit. 'I suppose so,' says she; 'that's
why I wouldn't let them call the amberlance.'

"'And do you mean to keep her _here_?' says I. 'That drunken rubbish?'

"Well, she does; she was awful sorry for the trouble to us, but the
woman fell down at her door, and she was in dire misery, and Miss Mercy
she felt she had _got_ to take her in. My word, Miss Patsy, I had to
shet my teeth a minute to keep back my feelings, but every word I said
was: 'I guess you better move that other bed out and then you can _burn_
this one!' Heavens, I ain't going to describe the next hour till the
doctor come. Now, she's laying comfortable in the doctor's gown, in that
nice clean bed, and I've made her chicken brot