It
was a good-luck charm which Mammy Jane had placed there to ward off the
threatened evil from the grandchild of her dear old mistress. Mrs.
Carteret's first impulse was to throw the bag into the fire, but on
second thoughts she let it remain. To remove it would give unnecessary
pain to the old nurse. Of course these old negro superstitions were
absurd,--but if the charm did no good, it at least would do no harm.
XII
ANOTHER SOUTHERN PRODUCT
One morning shortly after the opening of the hospital, while Dr. Miller
was making his early rounds, a new patient walked in with a smile on his
face and a broken arm hanging limply by his side. Miller recognized in
him a black giant by the name of Josh Green, who for many years had
worked on the docks for Miller's father,--and simultaneously identified
him as the dust-begrimed negro who had stolen a ride to Wellington on
the trucks of a passenger car.
"Well, Josh," asked the doctor, as he examined the fracture, "how did
you get this? Been fighting again?"
"No, suh, I don' s'pose you could ha'dly call it a fight. One er dem
dagoes off'n a Souf American boat gimme some er his jaw, an' I give 'im
a back answer, an' here I is wid a broken arm. He got holt er a
belayin'-pin befo' I could hit 'im."
"What became of the other man?" demanded Miller suspiciously. He
perceived, from the indifference with which Josh bore the manipulation
of the fractured limb, that such an accident need not have interfered
seriously with the use of the remaining arm, and he knew that Josh had a
reputation for absolute fearlessness.
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