From that hour there was a marked improvement in that patient’s symptoms, and many other overcharged hearts were relieved by this outburst of feeling. In less than two weeks this boy, closely wrapped in blankets, was helped to the train, for he was going home on a furlough. Friends were to meet him at St. Louis, and accompany him to his home and his mother in Denmark, Iowa.
And she did nurse him up; and he returned well and strong, to beat the drum for the rallying of the serried ranks of men, who, with set faces and glittering steel, marched to battle.
Never was a mother more grateful than that Iowa mother was for the little kindnesses shown to her suffering boy. I afterwards met him in the ranks; for he came down to the Sanitary boat to meet me. He was well and strong, and very grateful for the little help I had rendered him.
SAVED BY A BIRD.
THE surgeon in one of the Nashville hospitals said, pointing to one of his patients, “There is a young man slowly starving to death. His fever is broken, and he might get well, but we cannot get him to eat anything. If you can tempt him to eat he may recover.”
I went over and stood beside his cot. “I am glad to see you looking so much better,” I said enthusiastically. He shook his head. “Oh, yes you are; and now what can I bring you to eat? I’ll bring you something real nice; what shall it be?”
“Nothing.” And he turned his face away in disgust.
“I’ll tell you what you can eat;” for I suddenly remembered that I had seen a lot of birds hanging in a meat-shop as I came down to that hospital; “you can eat a nice broiled bird.”
He looked up in surprise with a ghost of a smile on his face. “Maybe I could.”