Such as were available were taken out and given to the mother, with directions about administering them, which she promised to obey. "But the first and most important thing for you to do is to shut the door, and make up the fire, and put the child to bed, and try to keep this wind off her."
"Lord! sir, you can't keep her in bed—she's too wild."
"Well, you must put some more clothes on her. Wrap her up, and try to keep her warm. The very best thing you can do for her is to give her a warm bath. Have you not got a washing tub?"
"Oh! yes, sir, I can do that. She'll go to bed pretty early; she's used to going 'tween sundown and dark."
"Well, give her the warm bath, then, and if she gets worse send for a physician immediately. You must be very careful of her, madam."
We walked to the stable, and as the horses had not finished eating their corn, I lounged about the quarters, and talked with the negro.
There was not a single soul in the quarters or in sight of the house except ourselves, the woman and her children, and the old negro. The negro women must have taken their sucklings with them, if they had any, to the field where they were at work.
The old man said they had "ten or eleven field-hands, such as they was," and his master would sell sixty to seventy bags of cotton: besides which they made all the corn and pork they wanted, and something over, and raised some cattle.
We found our way back to the town only late in the evening. We had ridden most of the day over heavily-timbered, nearly flat, rich bottom land. It is of very great fertility; but, being subject to overflow, is not very attractive, in spite of its proximity to a market.
