“It is nothing near so bad as you seem to think, Miss. Bless you! see how many have lost both legs, or both arms, or one of each. And see how many have lost their lives! I consider myself one of the lucky ones, Miss. Only I don’t dare to write and tell mother yet. I don’t know that I shall ever tell her. What would be the use? I think I shall wait and not go home until I get the bran new patent leg Uncle Sam is going to give me; and then I shall walk in on mother, in a new pair of boots, and she will never know what is in them, or that one of my limbs has gone to the grave before me.”
“Are you your mother’s only son?” inquired Elfie, still kneeling by the bed.
“Oh, no, Miss,” answered the boy, smiling; “and neither is she a widow. Mother has a husband and seven sons in the war. I am only her youngest. But, bless you, Miss, she loves us all as if each was her only one.”
“But if her husband and all her sons are in the war, who is at home with her?” inquired Elfie, not, however, forgetting the man on the table in the operating room, even while feeling much interest in the new object of her sympathy.
“Our sister is at home with mother. And I really do believe,” added the boy, smiling archly, “that nothing but their crinoline keeps them out of the army!”
“Nothing but our crinoline, if that is to stand for our sex, keeps thousands of us out of the army!” said Elfie.
At that moment the door at this end of the ward opened, and a little bustle ensued.
Elfie arose from her position, and held her breath in awe.
Through the door a small procession like a funeral train entered the ward.
Four men bore between them a bier on which was spread a narrow mattress, with the motionless form of a man extended at full length on it, and covered with a white sheet, and altogether looking like a dead body.