"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 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.
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