"Old Rosy, boys, was the man. I said I was disgusted, but we mustn't get discouraged. We have some earnest men—yes, I believe, plenty of them; but they're not given a fair show. It'll all come right, though, I believe. Men with hearts in them; and Rosy, let me tell you, is no runt in that litter.
"'Captain,' said he to me one day when I had gone to his head-quarters according to orders, 'I have something that must be done without delay, and from what I've seen of you, you are just the man for the work. I passed our hospital a few minutes ago, and I thought it was about to blaze; the smoke came out of the windows, chimney, doors, and every little crack so damnably. I turned around and went in, and found that the smoke had filled it, and that the poor fellows were suffering terribly. Now, Captain, they have no dry wood, and they must have some forth with, and I'll tell you where to get it.
"'The other day I rode by a nest of she-rebels, and found that they had cord upon cord of the best hickory piled up in the yard, as if cut by their husbands, before leaving, for use this winter. They have made provision enough for our hospital too. Now take three army wagons, as many men as you need, and go about three miles out the Little Gap Road till you come to a new weather-boarded house at the Forks. Make quick work, Captain.'
"I did make quick work in getting there, for that was about ten, and about half-past eleven the government wagons were in the yard of the house and my company in front.
"'We have no chickens,' squalled an old woman from a second-story window, 'nor pigs, nor anything—all gone. We are lone women.'
"'Only in the day-time, I reckon,' said my orderly;
the same fellow that winked at the chaplain. He was one of the roughest fellows that ever kept his breath over night. Long, lank, ill-favored, a white scrawny beard, stained from the corners of his mouth with tobacco juice; but for all, I'd pick him out of a thousand for an orderly. He was always there, and his rifle—he always carried his own—a small bore, heavy barrel, rough-looking piece, never missed.
"As the old woman was talking from the window, a troop of women, from eighteen to forty years old—but I am a better judge of horses' ages than women's; they slip us up on that pint too often—came rushing out of the door. They made all kinds of inquiries, but I set my men quietly to work loading the wood.
"'Now, Captain, you shan't take that wood,' said a well-developed little, rather pretty, black-haired woman, but with those peculiar black eyes, full of the devil, that you only see among the Rebels, and that the Almighty seems to have set in like lanterns in lighthouses to show that their bearers are not to be trusted. 'You shan't take that wood!' raising her voice to a scream. The men worked on quietly, and I overlooked the work.