“Maybe I do not, but I know the post-bellum, I can tell you, and I’ve very little use for them.”
“Do you wish to examine Charles?” she asked, quietly.
“If he had been a white man, I should have done so last night when I was first called to attend him; but I came near being mobbed the last time I tried to use a stethoscope on a negro patient. The family thought I was about to remove the woman’s lungs, I believe.”
“Charles, I wish Dr. Black to examine you very thoroughly while he is here—as thoroughly as if he were treating me. There is nothing to alarm you; but we cannot treat you understandingly unless he learns exactly where the greatest difficulty lies.”
“Wha’ he gwine do to me?” asked Charles, his eyes opening wide.
“Examine your lungs and heart to see if they are sound and strong.”
“He gwine cut me wide open?” cried the old man.
Just then Mammy entered. It was well she did. “Luty, Luty, dat man gwine projec’ wid me, honey; don’ you let him.”
For a moment Mammy seemed ready to take the defensive, and Dr. Black shrugged his shoulders in a manner which indicated: “I told you so.” Perhaps it was the shrug—Mammy wasn’t slow to grasp a situation—but more likely it was the look in her Miss Jinny’s eyes, for, turning to the doctor, she said, with the air of an African queen:
“Yo’ is de perfessional ’tendant, an’ I wishes yo’ fer ter do what yo’ an’ ma Miss Jinny knows fer ter be right wid de patient.”