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.”

“Even so, I couldn’t leave Clem.  My daughter will be cared for, but Clem wouldn’t have anybody.  We’ll fight it out on this line, Major.”

I now saw that continuous questioning about Miss Caroline would bring one in time to madness, and I was glad of my resolve never again to indulge in this unprofitable occupation.

But even pneumonia has its defeats.  Young Doc surprised Old Doc again; for the latter, once convinced that an African could suffer so civilized an affliction as pneumonia, had declined to believe that he could ever “throw it off,” and had disclosed good reasons why he could not to an attentive group at the City Drug Store.

Yet after a night when Miss Caroline had refused to let me watch, she met me at the door as Young Doc was leaving.  She was wearied but chipper, though there was an unsteady little lift in her voice as she said:—­

“That lazy black wretch is going to get well!”

“It’s about time,” I said grimly.  “I’ve been in a bad way without him.  Indeed I’m very glad to hear you say so.”

Her eyes twinkled approval upon me, I thought.

“You’ve behaved excellently, Major.  Really, I am glad that we left you that other arm.”  This was almost in her old manner, though her eyes seemed a little dimmed by her excitement.  Then, with a sudden return to the patient:—­

“I wonder if you would be good enough to go in and swear at Clem.  He’s perfectly rational now, and it will hearten him wonderfully.  He’s dreadfully mortified because he’s been sick so long.  And it needs a man, you know, really.  I’ll close the door for you.  Do it hard!  Call him a damned black hound, if you please, and ask him what he means by it!”

I hurried in, for Miss Caroline’s eyes were threatening to betray her.

CHAPTER XX

IN WHICH SOMETHING MUST BE DONE

Clem’s prolonged convalescence was a trial to his militant spirit.  The month or more of curious weakness in his body, always before so stout, left him with a fear that he had been “pah’lyzed in th’ frame.”  Moreover, there were troubles less intimately personal to him, but not less harassing to the household.