“YOU WAIT”
[Phoebe Y. Pember, in Hospital Life.]
Pleasant episodes often occurred to vary disappointments and lighten duties of hospital life.
“Kin you writ a letter?” drawled a whining voice from a bed in one of the wards, a cold day in ’62.
The speaker was an up-country Georgian, one of the kind called “Goobers” by the soldiers generally—lean, 94 yellow, attenuated, with wispy strands of hair hanging over his high, thin cheek-bones. He put out a hand to detain me and the nails were like claws.
“Why do you not let the nurse cut your nails?”
“Because I aren’t got any spoon, and I use them instead.”
“Will you let me have your hair cut then? You can’t get well with all that dirty hair hanging about your eyes and ears.”
“No, I can’t git my hair cut, kase as how I promised my mammy that I would let it grow till the war be over. Oh, it’s unlucky to cut it.”