"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." "Not worms," corrected Amanda; "_germs_. That ain't no superstition; that's a scientific fac'. They is so little you don't see 'em; but they's there all right. Mis' Bertram says they's ever'where--in the water, in the air, crawlin' up the very walls." Gordon Lee looked fearfully at the ceiling, as if he expected an immediate attack from that direction.