Now it happened that one afternoon after Maggie had been reading to her, Brenda remembered the photograph that she had seen in Maggie's room, and again, as on that former day, she asked her about it. So Maggie was drawn to tell all about Tim, even the sad story of his imprisonment.
"But now," she concluded, "everything is going to be all right. His captain is going to have him recommended for promotion for saving life—great bravery," and she pronounced the words with extreme pride. "He saved an officer at the risk of his own life, and when the war's over he's coming to see me."
In fact, Maggie had good reason to be proud of Tim. She had read his name in the newspapers, and though his own letters were modest, she was sure that he had been a real hero.
But the strangest thing of all was a letter from Philip Blair, that Mrs. Barlow read one day aloud in Maggie's presence.
"After all," he wrote, "sick as Arthur is, we may be thankful that it is fever and a very slight wound that keep him on his back. From all I hear he had the narrowest escape, and but for a private soldier, Tim McSorley, he would probably have lost both legs." Then followed a description of the way in which Tim had rescued him almost from under the bursting shell; for, the newspaper report to the contrary, Arthur had not been badly hurt by the shell, only stunned, with a slight wound also from a grazing bullet. But the hardships of the campaign had so told on him that he was soon on the sick list, and when he reached Fort Monroe on the hospital ship he was in a raging fever.
Now to Philip in this eventful July had come an opportunity for usefulness, really greater than if he had gone to Cuba in the army. As his father could now spare him, he had given invaluable service to the sick. He had made one trip to Cuba and had had the grave of Tom Hearst marked properly, and he had travelled the length of the country from Florida to Boston to report to the Volunteer Aid Association the especial needs of the sick soldiers in the camps that he had visited. He was a real ministering angel—for angels are often masculine—to Arthur and other sick friends of his in the hospital at Fort Monroe; and those who knew how much he accomplished in this direction wondered how he found time for the long and cheerful letters that he wrote to the friends of the sick to keep up their spirits.
Lois, too, though belated, had a chance to serve as a nurse in one of the camps, and, while doing her duty there, had the satisfaction of knowing that she was not neglecting home duties; for both her family and Miss Ambrose were at last in such a condition that she felt justified in leaving them. Though few persons would have envied her her hard hospital work, Lois considered herself the most enviable of mortals, and all that she went through only confirmed her in her strong desire to be a doctor.