Deborah had not suffered terribly, nor had she suffered long. She allowed one morning when she decided to keep to her bed that she had felt “weaky” ever since she and Edna Davis had spent an afternoon working on their husbands’ graves. At noon, when Lovey herself carried a tray up to her, she would not eat, and asked Lovey to please tell Ezra to come to her. This Lovey did immediately.

Ezra was still the medicine man for the plantation. After talking to his mistress a little while, he left the room, Lovey staying behind. Going to look for her, he met Sarah on the stairs and told her to send for Dr. Chester Porterfield. She took his hand, her eyes lifting toward Deborah’s room. Guessing her thought, he said, “Lovey is with her. No need for you. Let her rest.”

Together they went downstairs, and a few minutes later Floyd was galloping down the front drive to summon the doctor. Ezra returned to Deborah’s room with an herb gruel which he coaxed her into eating. He also brought a small padded cloth into which other herbs had been sewn. When it was steeped in hot water and held under Deborah’s nose, it gave off a sharp, penetrating odor that he hoped would allow her to breathe more easily; and so it did.

Then the portly Dr. Porterfield arrived, delighted to see Deborah on a sick bed at last. In all the time they had known each other, she had never asked that his knowledge be put to her aid, and it gave him special pleasure to be sent for now, until she made it perfectly clear by her surprise and annoyance at seeing him that it was not she who had asked him to come. The first thing the doctor did after taking command of the sick room was to order “that mess” as he called Ezra’s remedies, to be taken away. He gave the patient calomel for her fever and said that a mustard plaster was to be applied to her chest “as hot as she can bear it.” Then he felt her pulse, looking gravely at the large watch he drew from a pocket of his waistcoat.