ble to accomplish so much as she
did. Often did they express their anxiety lest she should be compelled
from weariness and illness to leave them, but her smiling, cheerful face
reassured them. She and Miss Hall occupied for themselves and their
stores, a double hospital tent, and let the weather be what it might,
she was always at her post in the hospitals promptly at her hours, and
dispensed with a liberal hand to those who needed, the delicacies, the
stimulants, and medicines they required. She had made a flag for her
tent by sewing upon a breadth of calico a figure of a bottle cut out of
red flannel, and the bottle-flag flew to the wind at all times,
indicative of the medicines which were dispensed from the tent below. We
have endeavored to give a view of this tent, from which came daily such
quantities of delicacies, such excellent milk-punch to nourish and
support the patients whose condition was most critical, such finely
flavored flaxseed tea for the army of patients suffering from pulmonic
diseases ("_her_ flaxseed tea," says one of her boys, "was _never_
insipid"), lemonades for the feverish, and something for every needy
patient. See her as she comes out of her tent for her round of hospital
duties, a substantial comely figure, with a most benevolent and motherly
face, her hands filled with the good things she is bearing to some of
the sufferers in the hospital; she has discarded hoops, believing with
Florence Nightingale, that they are utterly incompatible with the duties
of the hospital; she has a stout serviceable apron nearly covering her
dress, and that apron is a miracle of pockets; pockets before, behind,
and on each side; deep, wide pockets, all stored full of something which
will benefit or amuse her "boys;" an apple, an orange, an interesting
book, a set of chess-men, checkers, dominoes, or puzzles, newspapers,
magazines, everything desired, comes out of those capacious pockets. As
she enters a ward, the whisper passes from one cot to another, that
"mother" is coming, and faces, weary with pain, brighten at her
approach, and sad hearts grow glad as she gives a cheerful smile to one,
says a kind word to another, administers a glass of her punch or
lemonade to a third, hands out an apple or an orange to a fourth, or a
book or game to a fifth, and relieves the hospital of the gloom which
seemed brooding over it. But not in these ways alone does she bring
comfort and happiness to these poor wounded and fev