"The hospital!" echoed Mandy, with a half-terrified glance over her
shoulder. "Yes, ef you want to be shipped out of town in a box for the
student doctors to cut up, I reckon the hospital is a good place. It's
just like everything else the rich swells does--it's for their profit,
not for our'n. They was a lot of big talk when they built that thar
hospital, and every one of us was axed to give something for beds and
such. We was told that if we got hurt in the mill we could go thar free,
and if we fell sick they'd doctor us for little or nothin'. They can
afford it--considerin' the prices they git for dead bodies, I reckon."
"Now, Mandy, you don't believe any such as that," remonstrated Johnnie,
with a half-smile.
"Believe it--I know it to be true!" Mandy stuck to her point stubbornly.
"Thar was Lura Dawson; her folks was comin' down to git the body and
bury hit, and when they got here the hospital folks couldn't tell 'em
whar to look--no, they couldn't. Atlas Dawson 'lows he'll git even with
'em if it takes him the rest of his natural life. His wife was a
Bushares and her whole tribe is out agin the hospital folks and the mill
folks down here. I reckon you live too far up in the mountains to hear
the talk, but some of these swells had better look out."
As the long, hot days followed each other, Johnnie noticed how Mandy
failed.
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