At eleven o'clock, when the labourers came in from the field, Sheldon had them assembled in the compound before the veranda.

Every able man was there, including those who were helping about the hospital.
Even the women and the several pickaninnies of the plantation were lined up with the rest, two deep--a horde of naked savages a trifle under two hundred strong.

In addition to their ornaments of bead and shell and bone, their pierced ears and nostrils were burdened with safety-pins, wire nails, metal hair-pins, rusty iron handles of cooking utensils, and the patent keys for opening corned beef tins.

Some wore penknives clasped on their kinky locks for safety.

On the chest of one a china door-knob was suspended, on the chest of another the brass wheel of an alarm clock.
Facing them, clinging to the railing of the veranda for support, stood the sick white man.