should be safe with God, and know that for every
creature He was working out some noble destiny. All the pain, and
sorrow, and defeat, were rough places--briars in an upward path to
something we should all rejoice to see.

All day that dark stream surged around that corner, and I took heart
that the flight was not disorderly, since I heard of none coming by any
other street. All day the work went on as usual at the old theater, and
I made short excursions to other places. Up that street in one end of an
engine house, up a narrow, winding stair, I found a room full of men
deserted, and in most pitiable condition. They were all supposed to be
fever cases, but one young man had an ankle wound, in which inflammation
had appeared. I hurried to the surgeons, stationed in the far end of the
building, and reported the case. They sent immediately for the man, and
I knew in two hours that the amputation had been successful, and barely
in time.

As I went on that errand, I met two Christian Commission men walking
leisurely, admiring the light of the rising sun on the old buildings,
and told them of the urgent demand for help, and chicken broth or beef
broth and water up in that room. They were polite, and promised to go as
soon as possible to the relief of that distress; but when I returned and
up to the last knowledge I had of the case, they had not been there.

I secured a can of cooked turkey, the only one I ever saw, and a pitcher
of hot water, and with these made a substitute for chicken broth; gave
them all drinks of water, bathed their faces, found one of their absent
nurses, made him promise to stay, and went back to the main building to
have some one see that he kept his word.

Here was a large floor almost covered with wounded, and among them a
woman stumbled about weeping, wailing, boo-hooing and wringing her
hands; I caught her wrist, and said:

"What _is_ the matter?" "Oh! oh! oh! Boo-hoo! boo-hoo! the poor fellow
is goin' to die an' wants me to write to his mother."

"Well, write to her and keep quiet! you need not kill all the rest of
them because he is going to die."

"Oh! boo-hoo! some people has no feelin's; but I have got feelin's!"

I led her to the surgeon in charge, who sent her and her "feelin's" to
her quarters, and told her not to come back.

She was the only one of the Dix' nurses I saw in Fredericksburg, and her
large, flat, flabby face was almost hideous with its lack of eye-brows
and lashes;