“Yes, yes; I reckon I am thankful. I don’t know how I am now. But I’m trying to submit myself to the will of the Lord. Nellie, you don’t know what a sweet baby he was! the prettiest little fellow! as soon as he could walk, he was always toddling after me and pulling at my skirts.”
I turned my head away.
“Last night I dozed for a minute and I dreamed about him. He was my baby again, and I had him safe in my arms, and there never had been any war. But I didn’t sleep much. I couldn’t come as soon as I got the telegram. I had to wait for a train. And I was up nearly all night cooking things to bring him.”
She opened her basket and satchel and showed me. They were full of little cakes and crackers, wine jellies and blanc-mange, and other delicacies for the sick.
“Do you think if I had gotten here in time he could have eaten them?” she asked wistfully.
“He could not eat anything,” I said, choking back my tears.
“You don’t think he was hungry at all, Nell? The soldiers have so little to eat sometimes—and I have heard it said that people are sometimes hungry when they are dying.”
“Dear Mrs. Jeter, he looked well and strong except for the wound. You know the troops had just returned from the valley, where they had plenty to eat.”
“I am glad of that. I was just getting a box ready to send him full of everything I thought he would like. And I had some clothes for him. I began making the clothes as soon as I heard the troops had come back to Culpeper. You say he was wounded in the head?”
Neither of us closed our eyes that night. She walked the floor asking the same questions over and over again, and I got so I answered yes or no just as I saw she wanted yes or no and without regard to the truth.