"Even if we do cut off limbs that might have been saved—hey? God knows, they often might! and that there's haste and waste enough!—Here's Sam, bringing in a visitor. A general, too—looks like a Titian I saw once."
"It is my father," said Judith. "He told me he would come for me."
A little later, father and daughter, moving through the ward, found the man from Albemarle—not one of those who would go away to-morrow. He lay gaunt and shattered, with strained eyes and fingers picking at the sheet. "Don't you know me, Mocket?"
Mocket roused himself for one moment. "Course I know you, general! Crops mighty fine this year! Never saw such wheat!" The light sank in his eyes; his face grew as it was before, and his fingers picked at the sheet. He spoke in a monotone. "We've had such a hard time since we left home—We've had such a hard time since we left home—We've had such a hard time since we left home—We—"
Judith dashed her hand across her eyes. "Come away! He says just that all the time!"
They moved through the ward, Warwick Cary speaking to all. "No, men! I can't tell you just when will be the battle, but we must look for it soon—for one or for many. Almost any day now. No, I cannot tell you if General Jackson is coming. It is not impossible. 'Washington Artillery?' That's a command to be proud of. Let me see your Tiger Head." He looked at the badge with its motto Try Us, and gave it back smilingly. "Well, we do try you, do we not?—on every possible occasion!—Fifth North Carolina? Wounded at Williamsburg!—King William Artillery?—Did you hear what General D. H. Hill said at Seven Pines? He said that he would rather be captain of the King William Artillery than President of the Confederate States.—Barksdale's Mississippians? Why, men, you are all by-words!"
The men agreed with him happily. "You've got pretty gallant fellows yourself, general!" The King William man cleared his throat. "He's got a daughter, too, that I'd like to—I'd like to cheer!"
"That's so, general!" said the men. "That's so! She's a chip of the old block."
Father and daughter laughed and went on—out of this ward and into another, quite empty. The two stood by the door and looked, and that sadly enough. "All the cots, all the pallets," said Cary, in a low voice. "And out in the lines, they who will lie upon them! And they cannot see them stretching across their path. I do not know which place seems now the most ghostly, here or there."
"It was hard to get mattresses enough. So many hospitals—and every one has given and given—and beds must be kept for those who will be taken to private houses. So, at last, some one thought of pew cushions. They have been taken from every church in town. See! sewed together, they do very well."