Leading the way to the Barclugh apartments, Dr. Greydon conducted Segwuna to the sick-room on the second floor, and as they entered, the other medical man remarked:
“Well, our wishes were quickly answered.”
“Let me introduce Segwuna, the granddaughter of Altamaha; she resides on our estate and she has volunteered to help rescue the afflicted—I know that no one could do it better,” were the words of Dr. Greydon, as he took off his coat and began to get ready for the care of Mr. Barclugh.
Segwuna immediately straightened out the room. She went with Dr. Greydon through the house, and they found a large fireplace in the kitchen of the residence where Barclugh had his business offices and sleeping apartments.
There were a few pieces of wood so that a fire was soon going on the hearth. Then a memorandum of necessary articles of household utility was made, and in a very few minutes it seemed as though an angel had flown into the former desolate house. As Segwuna went from room to room, silently arranging a piece of furniture, and opening the windows and shutters, sunshine seemed to drive chaos away.
The life that Barclugh led seemed to be wrong; when sickness came upon him, money was mute. There was no loving kindness ready to be shown to him, except what came from God’s messengers. Poor mortal! He was lying unconsciously helpless, ignorant of the loving hands that now administered kindnesses unto him.
At the end of the day, the household was settled down to a routine; Segwuna had medicines, delicacies, linen and food for a long and tedious battle with the dreaded peste, but better still she had the instincts of a true nurse.
The sleeping-room on the second story, being the sick-room, she closed the shutters to let in a minimum of light; she placed a pure white linen cloth on the table; she kept cloths wet with vinegar on the parched brow of the patient. A vase of pinks that had been sent by Mollie from Dorminghurst was tastefully placed upon the table. In the restful moments of the sick man, she slipped down stairs to the kitchen and prepared a hot mustard bath for the feet, to relieve the congestion in the brain. Wrapping the patient in a woolen blanket, she placed his extremities in the hot bath, and then put him between clean linen to cool his burning body.
During the first twenty-four hours, the paroxysm of the fever was intense. The temperature was 105 degrees Fahrenheit, and as Barclugh lay suffering on his back the groans and tossing of the sick one were heart-rending. He was only semi-conscious most of the time, but Segwuna never flagged in her attentions. After Dr. Biddle had first administered a simple emetic, and then performed the customary bleeding for the first stages of the disease, a large dose of calomel and subsequently a half-tumblerful of oleum ricinum was administered to relieve the alimentary canal. It was then a fight of physical endurance against disease.
However, Segwuna knew that the doctors were groping in the dark in treating this disease, so she felt that much depended upon her skill in keeping down the temperature, and keeping up the sick one’s strength, in order to stand the ravages on his vital organs. When Barclugh tossed and raved in his delirium, she saw that he placed his hand upon his chest and stomach, and she felt that the fever must be burning the vital organs. So she prepared a hot plaster of mustard and placed it on the pit of his stomach. In a short time the patient seemed to get more quiet, and he rested easily until morning.