"'How much is it?'
"'Nothing,' replied the store-keeper.
"'Sir!' queried she, in the utmost amazement, 'nothing for all this?'
"'My good woman,' asked the guide, 'have you a Soldiers' Aid Society in your neighborhood?'
"Yes, they had; she belonged to it herself.
"'Well, what do you suppose becomes of the garments you make, and the fruit have you put up?'
"She hadn't thought,—she supposed they went to the army,—but was evidently bothered to know what connection there could be between their Aid Society and that basket.
"'These garments that you see came from your society, or other societies just like yours; so did these boxes and barrels; that milk came from New York; those fruits from Boston; that wine was likely purchased with gold from California; and it is all for sick soldiers, your son as much as for any one else. This is the United States Sanitary Commission storehouse; you must come here whenever you wish, and call for everything you want; and you must stay with your son until he is able to go home: never mind the money's giving out; you shall have more, which, when you get back, you can refund for the use of other mothers and sons; when you are ready to go, I will put him in a berth where he can lie down, and you shall save his life yet.'
"She did,—God bless her innocent, motherly heart!—when nothing but motherly care could have achieved it; and when last seen, on a dismal, drizzly morning, was, with her face beaming out the radiance of hope, making a cup of tea on the stove of a caboose-car for the convalescent, who was snugly tucked away in the caboose-berth, waiting the final whistle of the locomotive that would speed them both homeward."
But for many of our soldiers there is yet another phase in store,—that sad time when the clangor and fierce joy and wild, exulting hurrah of the battle are over forever; and so, too, is over tender hospital-nursing, and they are sent out by hundreds, cured of their wounds, but maimed, the sources of life half drained, vigor gone, hope all spent, to limp through the blind alleys and by-ways of life, dropped out of the remembrance of a country that has used and forgotten them. They have given for her, not life, but all that makes life pleasant, hopeful, or even possible. It seems to me, that, in common decency, if she has no laurels to spare, she should at least give them in return—a daily dinner. Already, however, has the idea been set forth, after a better fashion than I can hope to do,—in wood and stone, and by the aid of a charter.