“Plenty of work for the ladies, Miss ——; I see some pretty bad cases coming in.”
“Just what we wanted, doctor; we have been hoping they would come in our week, and it’s almost over.”
“Time enough, yet, to make them plenty of milk punch, and cold drinks. Some of them, I notice, are much exhausted, and will need stimulating.”
Here was a practical suggestion—something to be acted upon at once, and far more useful than running to look at them, as they are carried in; so I return quickly, tell M. the doctor’s wish, and all our pitchers are hastily filled with milk punch, iced lemonade, syrup and water, etc., etc. This, of course, occupies some little time; and as we reach the dining-room,—where all are placed who can walk, hobble, or crawl, till they are distributed into the different wards, while those on stretchers are being carried at once to their beds,—I almost start at the rough-looking set we suddenly find ourselves in the midst of. Are they miners or coal-heavers? Black enough and dirty enough for either; and I catch myself repeating over and over, “In poverty, hunger, and dirt,” etc., till I am afraid I shall say it aloud. But what care we for dust and dirt? Set down your pitcher, shake hands, and thank them. Is it not Gettysburg dust and dirt? Is it not the dust and dirt of victory? Have not those torn and bullet-riddled clothes come straight from the field of their fame? And have they not saved us from distress, wretchedness, and ruin? I look at them with reverence; they seem to bring the battle so very near that the tears will rise, as those torn and dirty bandages show at what cost the victory was won. But do not imagine me standing all this time in a fine frenzy, meditating on the results of a battle. These thoughts slip in, between the filling and emptying of our pitchers, and the glad, grateful expressions for the “treat,” as they call it. Poor fellows! they shall have our best, that is very certain.
As I am pouring out the last glass from my pitcher, my eye is caught by a face, on a stretcher, as it is borne past me. It is that of a boy, scarcely more than sixteen, I should think. His thick, black curls, eyes bright and sparkling, (with fever, it must be,) and brilliant color, contrast with his remarkably clean shirt and sheet. What can it mean, amidst this mass of dirt? As my work is done, I follow him into the ward.
“You can’t have been in the Gettysburg fight, my boy, were you?”
“I don’t know, ma’am, rightly, whether you’d call it in it or not; I was in an ambulance, in the rear. I’ve been in one, following the army, since the twenty-first of June; and it seems pretty good to be on a thing that don’t move.”
“But why weren’t you left in a hospital?”
“’Cause I begged so to go on with the rest. The ambulance was going, and I begged them to let me go in it, and I promised to be well for the fight; so they took me; but I got so much worse, I didn’t know when the fight was; it’s the typhoid I’ve got, and my head’s dreadful bad.”