"
"You see," interrupts Mr. Praiseworthy, looking more serious than
ever, "It's the life saved to the nigger; he's grateful for it; and
if they ain't pious just then, it gives them time to consider, to
prepare themselves. My little per centage is small-it's a mean
commission; and if it were not for the satisfaction of knowing how
much good I do, it wouldn't begin to pay a professional gentleman."
As the Elder concludes his remarks, melancholy sounds are breaking
forth in frightful discord. From strange murmurings it rises into
loud wailings and implorings. "Take me, good Lord, to a world of
peace!" sounds in her ears, as they approach through a garden and
enter a door that opens into a long room, a store-house of human
infirmity, where moans, cries, and groans are made a medium of
traffic. The room, about thirty feet long and twenty wide, is
rough-boarded, contains three tiers of narrow berths, one above the
other, encircling its walls. Here and there on the floor are cots,
which Mr. Praiseworthy informs us are for those whose cases he would
not give much for. Black nurses are busily attending the sick
property; some are carrying bowls of gruel, others rubbing limbs and
quieting the cries of the frantic, and again supplying water to
quench thirst. On a round table that stands in the centre of the
room is a large medicine-chest, disclosing papers, pills, powders,
phials, and plasters, strewn about in great disorder. A bedlam of
ghastly faces presents itself,--dark, haggard, and frantic with the
pains of the malady preying upon the victims.
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