“Why not?” I asked. “Why can’t you eat?”
“Why,” he said, “these ain’t John C. Guffin’s teeth, and I can’t eat, I can’t eat.”
Here was a problem. The boy must not be forced against his own will. “Why, my boy, that’s nonsense, because you have had a bad fever.”
He repeated, “Can’t eat, can’t eat; these ain’t my teeth, and I can’t eat with another man’s teeth.”
Experience had taught us many devices while in our daily care of irresponsible patients, so I replied quickly, “O, that makes no difference, don’t you know you can eat just as well with another man’s teeth as with your own?”—a fact painfully true to many. He turned and looked at me very doubtfully while I repeated and urged him to try. “Now, John, I’m going to make something real nice for you, and you are going to eat it.”
Very soon I brought my little tray, with silver cup and spoon and a pretty doily, in which for refined patients I had much confidence, and which at once diverted their attention. When I sat down beside him he said once more to me rather quietly, “Can’t eat, can’t eat.”
“Now, John, I made this just for you; it’s awfully good, taste it.”
Taking advantage of an open-mouthed objection, I slipped in a spoonful which he was obliged to swallow, greatly to his surprise; and so I quickly followed it with two or three more spoonfuls, and left the little tray for him to look at, and to help him to reason out why he could eat with another man’s teeth.
Daily I fed him until he was able to take the regular hospital diet. While convalescent, and when quite himself, we had almost a quarrel. I wished to return the little silver watch, and he insisted upon my keeping it, this I refused until he declared that it was not good enough, and if I would not keep it he would send me a handsome gold one when he reached home. At last I consented to accept it as a keepsake from a boy friend, saying I would rather have it than a gold one. To my great regret, while galloping with a party through Petersburg, just after the capture, I lost it from my belt, with a bunch of rings made from buttons, and little tokens made by the boys from the bones of the meat in their rations.
Meanwhile I had written to his family and to his employer, Mr. Gibson, who wrote that if the boy could be taken home he would come for him. Immediately I wrote and explained to him what was necessary to procure a discharge or sick furlough. The former was soon obtained, as he was even then but a boy. Mr. Gibson came at once, and took the lad home in a most generous manner.