water-pails were gone to be refilled, and it was
some time before they reappeared. I did not forget my patient patient,
meanwhile, and, with the first mugful, hurried back to him. He seemed
asleep; but something in the tired white face caused me to listen at
his lips for a breath. None came. I touched his forehead; it was cold:
and then I knew that, while he waited, a better nurse than I had given
him a cooler draught, and healed him with a touch. I laid the sheet
over the quiet sleeper, whom no noise could now disturb; and, half an
hour later, the bed was empty. It seemed a poor requital for all he had
sacrificed and suffered,--that hospital bed, lonely even in a crowd;
for there was no familiar face for him to look his last upon; no
friendly voice to say, Good bye; no hand to lead him gently down into
the Valley of the Shadow; and he vanished, like a drop in that red sea
upon whose shores so many women stand lamenting. For a moment I felt
bitterly indignant at this seeming carelessness of the value of life,
the sanctity of death; then consoled myself with the thought that, when
the great muster roll was called, these nameless men might be promoted
above many whose tall monuments record the barren honors they have won.

All having eaten, drank, and rested, the surgeons began their rounds;
and I took my first lesson in the art of dressing wounds. It wasn't a
festive scene, by any means; for Dr P., whose Aid I constituted myself,
fell to work with a vigor which soon convinced me that I was a weaker
vessel, though nothing would have induced me to confess it then. He had
served in the Crimea, and seemed to regard a dilapidated body very much
as I should have regarded a damaged garment; and, turning up his cuffs,
whipped out a very unpleasant looking housewife, cutting, sawing,
patching and piecing, with the enthusiasm of an accomplished surgical
seamstress; explaining the process, in scientific terms, to the
patient, meantime; which, of course, was immensely cheering and
comfortable. There was an uncanny sort of fascination in watching him,
as he peered and probed into the mechanism of those wonderful bodies,
whose mysteries he understood so well. The more intricate the wound,
the better he liked it. A poor private, with both legs off, and shot
through the lungs, possessed more attractions for him than a dozen
generals, slightly scratched in some "masterly retreat;" and had any
one appeared in small pieces, requesting to be