"You set it yourself! Why, how did you manage that?" inquired Robert.
"You remember, Mas Robbut, I bin hab my arm broke once befo'e; so I knowed jes what to do," replied Sam, and then he went on to describe his process. He said that finding the bones out of place, he had tied the hand of his broken arm to a root of the cedar, and strained himself back until the bones were able to pass, when he pressed them into place by means of his well hand.
After that he tore some strips from his clothing, and tied the hand over his breast, at the same time stuffing his bosom full of moss, to keep the bone straight, and over all passing a bandage, to keep the arm against his side. He had made a similar attempt to set the bone of his leg, but it pained him so much that he had given up the attempt.
On examination, Robert learned that the arm was broken between the elbow and shoulder, and that the leg was fractured between the knee and ankle. "The leg," said he, "is safe enough. Below the knee are two bones, and only one of these is broken. Would you like to have the bandage and splints put on your arm tonight?"
Sam replied that he was sure he should sleep better if Mas Robert was not too tired to attend to it, for he would be "mighty onrestless" while his bones were in that "fix."
The wearied boy pondered a moment, and asked his sister to tear one of the sheets or table-cloths into strips about as wide as her three fingers, and to sew the ends together, to make a bandage five or six yards long, while he and Harold prepared the splints. They then went to the palmetto tree, half a mile distant, and selecting one of the broadest and straightest of its flat, polished limbs, returned to the tent, and produced from it a lath about the length of the arm. Having bandaged the limb from the finger-ends to the shoulder, they bound it to this splint, which extended from the armpit to the extremity, and Robert pronounced the operation complete.
Sam was profuse in his praise of Robert's surgery, bestowing upon it every conceivable term of laudation, and seeming withal to be truly grateful. "Tankee, Mas Robert! Tankee, Mas Harold! Tankee, my dear little misses! Tankee, Mas Frank too! Tankee, ebbery body! I sure I bin die on dat sand-bank, 'sept you all bin so kind to de poor nigger."
"No more of that, Sam," said Robert, "you were hurt in trying to help us; it is but right we should help you."
At the close of this scene, the young people prepared for bed. It was past ten o'clock, and they were sadly in need of rest; but so strongly had their sympathies been excited for their black friend, that even little Frank kept wide awake, waiting his turn to be useful. When, however, their work was done, and they had lain down to rest, they needed no lullaby to hush them into slumber. Within twenty minutes after the light was extinguished, and during the livelong night, nothing was to be heard in that tent but the hard breathing of the wearied sleepers. Thanks to God for sleep! None but the weary know its blessedness.
CHAPTER XIX