"
"You would have done the same for me, Sam."
"S'pose I would; but dar ain't many dat would hab done it for me, and I
_won't forget you_. But wasn't I 'bout de sickest coon dat you eber seen?"
"You seemed to feel very bad," replied Jim.
"Feel bad? you'd better beleib I did! Do you know what de matter wid me?"
"No."
"I had de Norf American cholera; dat's worse dan de African. I also had
the pneumonia, and de bronchitis, and de measles, and de small-pox, and
the cholly-wampus--all at the same time. Do you wonder dat I groaned?"
"I shouldn't think you could groan at all, if you had so many diseases as
that."
"Dar's war my toughness and wrastling powers show themselves. I just
wrastled and wrastled, and I frowed 'em all."
Sam swung his huge legs out of the hammock, took a seat near Jim, and,
reaching out, he gently closed his immense fist around the little white
hand of the boy. Then leaning forward until his black face, as broad as
the moon, was almost against Jim's, he whispered,--
"Yous been mighty kind to me, sonny, and, as I obsarved befor', I ain't de
one to forget it.
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