DARLINGTON.
“I pity our sick men, to-day,” thought I, as I gladly took shelter within the hospital walls from the burning summer sun, which was beating with unusual violence upon the hot brick pavements and dusty streets. The city in summer, and “Dante’s Inferno,” always seem to me synonymous terms. It is on days like these, when the town seems so close and crowded, the heated air so heavy and impure, that I long to have the hospitals or their occupants all moved to the calm, cool country, where the poor sufferer may be beguiled from the thought of his pain by the sweet sights and sounds ever around him; that blessed blue, which no town sky can ever attain, let it try its best, broken by fair, floating masses of white clouds, their forms ever varying, yet each seeming more beautiful than the last; the glad, grateful green of woods and dells, which, like a loved presence, ever unconsciously soothes and satisfies; the soft, springing wild flowers, with their sweet, sunny smile,—these for the eye; while for the ear, listen to the cheerful chime with which that little babbling brook plays its accompaniment in “little sharps and trebles” to the chorus of voices overhead; no discord there—not one false note to jar the unstrung nerve, but all pure, perfect harmony.
Is there no medicine in all this? Rather, is it not worth, for purposes of cure, all, and more than all that the whole Materia Medica can offer? And yet there are men living on this earth who tell you, aye, even as though they were in earnest in the assertion, too, that they do not love the country—they prefer a city life. For such, I can only hope that retributive justice may bestow upon them a summer’s campaign in one of our city hospitals.
“Have you seen our new lot of wounded?”
“No. When did they come in? Any serious cases?”
“Only a few days ago. Yes, ma’am, some pretty bad wounds; worse than we’ve had yet—two of them can hardly live; but take care of one of them, when you go in; he’s as cross as thunder, if you go within a mile of his bed.”
This from one of the orderlies of the first ward, as my hand was upon the latch of the door. I confess the announcement was somewhat alarming, as we could then be but a few rods from his bed; however, “forewarned, forearmed.” I enter, and find the scene little different from usual, save that the vacant beds are all filled, and a few more have been added to the number, as they evidently stand much closer than they do ordinarily. I pass on to the familiar faces, and after a greeting with them, my attention is attracted by a bright, cheerful tune, whistled in a voice of uncommon sweetness. It comes from that bed where that poor arm is bandaged from shoulder to finger tip, and, right glad am I to hear it; the men who are cheerful, are, as a rule, always the first to recover. He stops as I come up.
“I am glad you can whistle; it shows you are not suffering so much as I feared, when I saw your bandages.”
He smiles, but says nothing; and I notice, as I come closer, that large drops of perspiration are standing in beads upon his brow; his one free hand is tightly clenched, and a nervous tremor runs over his whole frame.