Through the bars of the
inner room the wife gazed at her husband with streaming eyes.
His body had shrunk to a skeleton, his eyes set and glassy, his cheek
bones pressing against the shining skin. He rose and tottered across the
room, his breath coming in short gasps, his voice scarcely audible.
Mrs. Davis was locked in with him. She sent the baby back to her
quarters by Frederick, another faithful negro servant who had followed
their fortunes through good report and evil.
His room had a horse bucket for water, a basin and pitcher on an old
chair whose back had been sawed off, a little iron bedstead with hard
mattress, one pillow, a wooden table, and a wooden chair with one leg
shorter than the others which might be used as an improvised rocker. His
bed was so thick with bugs the room was filled with their odor. He was
so innocent of such things he couldn't imagine what distressed him so at
night--insisting that he had contracted some sort of skin disease.
His dinner was brought slopped from one dish to another and covered by a
gray hospital towel sogged with the liquids. The man of fastidious taste
glanced at the platter and saw that the good doctor's wife had added
oysters to his menu that day and ate one. His vitality was so low even
this gave him intense pain.
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