id:

"You do not seem to mind this, but I know you would not do it for
anything but the love of God, and none but He can ever reward you; but if
I live to see my wife and children, it will be through what you have
done for me, and I will teach them to bless your name!"

He quite took me by surprise, for I seemed to have forgotten any other
life than that I was then living; and dressing the most frightful wounds
was as natural as eating. I felt no disgust, no shrinking, and mere
conventional delicacy is withdrawn when the Angel of Death breathes upon
it.

The man we stepped over at the back door, proved to be a student from
the Pennsylvania Agricultural College, shot through the alimentary
canal, near the base of the spine. For him there was no hope, but I did
what I could to make him less uncomfortable, and once he said:

"This is strange work for a lady."

"You forget," I said, "that I am surgeon in charge, that you and I were
made of the same kind of clay, in much the same fashion, and will soon
turn into just the same kind of dust." How my heart was wrung for him,
with his refined face, dying for a country which sent its bayonets to
stand between him and the armful of straw, with which I might have
raised him above that muddy floor. He had no knapsack to serve as a
pillow, no blanket, no cup, and his position across the doorway was cold
and uncomfortable; but even after I had made a better place for him, he
objected to leaving two companions, who lay next to him, and I could not
find room for all three together, even on that dirty floor. He himself
always dressed the wound where the bullet entered, and was most grateful
for the means of doing so. I cared for that one through which Death's
messenger made its exit, and although he knew its condition, he did not
know the certainty of a fatal result, and resented any intimation that
he should not recover.

CHAPTER LXIX.

VISITERS.

The second morning of my work in the old theater, Miss Hancock came to
see how I got along. She was thoroughly practical, and a most efficient
laborer in the hospital field, and soon thought of something to better
the condition of the man minus clothes, who lay quite near my desk and
the front door, and caught my dress whenever he could, to plead for a
blanket. She could get no blanket; but was stationed in the Methodist
Church, where there was a surgeon in charge, and everything running in
regular order. In a tent adjoining, t