“And now I'm down and out,” Polly concluded with a sigh.
“But THIS is nothing serious,” said the pastor, trying to cheer her.
“It's serious ENOUGH, with a whole show a'-dependin' on you. Maybe you don't know how it feels to have to knock off work.”
“Oh, yes, I do,” Douglas answered quickly. “I was ill a while ago myself. I had to be in bed day after day, thinking of dozens of things that I ought to be doing.”
“Was you ever floored?” Polly asked with a touch of unbelief as she studied the fine, healthy physique at the side of her bed.
“'Deed he was, chile,” Mandy cried, feeling that her opportunity had now arrived; “an' I had the wors' time a-keepin' him in bed. He act jes' like you did.”
“Did he?” Polly was delighted to find that the pastor had “nothin' on her,” as she would have put it.
“You ought to have heard him,” continued Mandy, made eloquent by Polly's show of interest. “'What will dose poor folks do?' he kept a-sayin'. 'yes' yo' lie where yo' is,' I tole him. 'Dem poor folks will be better off dan dey would be a-comin' to yoah funeral.'”
“Poor folks?” Polly questioned. “Do you give money to folks? We are always itchin' to get it AWAY from 'em.”
Before Douglas could think of words with which to defend his disapproved methods, Mandy had continued eagerly: