The candle sputtered as the door was flung open, and a small, energetic mulatto woman, twenty years Gordon Lee’s junior, bustled into the room.

“Good lan’! but it’s hot in heah!” she exclaimed, flinging up a window.  “I got a good mind to nail this heah window down f’om the top.”

“I done open’ de door fer a spell dis mawnin’,” said Gordon Lee, sullenly, pulling the bedclothes tighter about his neck.  “Lettin’ in all dis heah night air meks my eyes sore.”

The bedclothes, having thus been drawn up from the bottom of the bed, left the patient’s feet exposed, and Amanda immediately spied the string-encircled toes.

“Gordon Lee Surrender Jones,” she exclaimed indignantly, “has that there meddlin’ ol’ Aunt Kizzy been here again?”

Gordon Lee’s eyes blinked, and his thick, sullen under lip dropped half an inch lower.

“Ef you think,” continued Amanda, furiously, “that I’m a-goin’ to keep on a-workin’ my fingers to the bone, lak I been doin’ for the past year, a-payin’ doctors’ bills, an’ buyin’ medicines fer you, while you lay up in this here bed listenin’ to the fool talk of a passel of igneramuses, you’s certainly mistaken.  Hit’s bad enough to have you steddyin’ up new ailments ever’ day, without folks a-puttin’ ’em in yer head.  Whut them strings tied on yer toes fer?”

Gordon Lee’s wheezing had ceased under his severe mental strain, and now he lay blinking at the ceiling, utterly unable to give a satisfactory answer.

“Aunt Kizzy jes happen’ ’long,” he muttered presently.  “Ain’t no harm in a’ ol’ frien’ passin’ de time ob day.”

“Whut them strings tied on yer toes fer?” repeated Amanda with fearful insistence.

Gordon Lee, pushed to the extreme, and knowing by experience that he was as powerless in the hands of his diminutive wife as an elephant in those of his keeper, weakly capitulated.

“Aunt Kizzy ‘low’—­I ain’t sayin’ she’s right; I’s jes tellin’ you what she ’low’—­Aunt Kizzy ‘low’ dat, ‘cordin’ to de symtems, she say’,—­an’ I ain’t sayin’ I b’lieve her,—­but she say’ hit looks to her lak I’s sufferin’ f’om a hoodoo.”

“A hoodoo!” Amanda’s scorn was unbounded.  “Ef it don’t beat my time how some of you niggers hang on to them ol’ notions.  ‘Tain’t nothin’ ’t all but ignorant superstition.  Ain’t I tol’ you that a hunderd times?”

“Yes, you done tol’ me,” said Gordon Lee, putting up a feeble defense.  “You all time quoilin’ an’ runnin’ down conjurin’ an’ bad-luck signs an’ all de nigger superstitions; but you’s quick ’nough to tek up all dese heah white superstitions.”

“How you mean?” demanded Amanda.

Gordon Lee, flattered at having any remark of his noticed, proceeded to elaborate.

“I mean all dis heah talk ‘bout hits bein’ bad luck to sleep wid de windows shet, an’ bout flies carrying disease, an’ ‘bout worms gittin’ in de milk ef you leave it settin’ roun’ unkivered.”