"YOU are the father of that boy in the far end of the tent," said the Surgeon coming up to the Deacon, who had stepped outside of the tent to get an opportunity to think clearly. "I'm very glad you have come, for his life hangs by a thread. That thread is his pluck, aided by a superb constitution. Most men would have died on the field from such a wound. Medicine can do but little for him; careful nursing much more; but his own will and your presence and encouragement will do far more than either."
"How about Shorty?" inquired the Deacon.
"Shorty's all right if he don't get a setback. The danger from the blow on his head is pretty near past, if something don't come in to make further complications. He has been pulled down pretty badly by the low fever which has been epidemic here since we have settled down in camp, but he seems to be coming out from it all right."
"I've come down here to do all that's possible for these two boys. Now, how kin I best do it?" asked the Deacon.
"You can do good by helping nurse them. You could do much more good if there was more to do with, but we lack almost everything for the proper care of the wounded and sick. We have 15,000 men in hospital here, and not supplies enough for 3,000. When we will get more depends on just what luck our cavalry has in keeping the rebels off our line of supplies."
"Show me what to do, give me what you kin, and I'll trust in the Lord and my own efforts for the rest."
"Yes, and you kin count on me to assist," chimed in Shorty, who had come up. "I won't let you play lone hand long, Deacon, for I'm gittin' chirpier every day. If I could only fill up good and full once more on hardtack and pork, or some sich luxuries, I'd be as good as new agin."
"You mean you'd be put to bed under three feet of red clay, if you were allowed to eat all you want to," said the Surgeon. "There's where the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb. If you could eat as much as you want to eat, I should speedily have to bid good-by to you. For the present, Mr. Klegg, do anything that suggests itself to you to make these men comfortable. I need scarcely caution you to be careful about their food, for there is nothing that you can get hold of to over-feed them. But you'd better not let them have anything to eat until I come around again and talk to you more fully. I put them in your charge."
The Deacon's first thought was for Si, and he bestirred himself to do what he thought his wife, who was renowned as a nurse, would do were she there.
He warmed some water, and tenderly as he could command his strong, stubby hands, washed Si's face, hands and feet, and combed his hair. The overworked hospital attendants had had no time for this much-needed ministration. It was all that they could do to get the wounded under some sort of shelter, to dress their wounds, and prepare food. No well man could be spared from the trenches for hospital service, for the sadly-diminished Army of the Cumberland needed every man who could carry a musket to man the long lines to repel the constantly-threatened assaults.