iping down walls and letting James River run over the floors? Might be
some sense in doing it _after_ the battle! Here, Sukey, don't splash
that water this a-way!--Won't keep the blood from the floor when they
all come piling in here to-morrow, and makes all of us damned
uncomfortable to-day!--Beg your pardon, Mrs. Randolph! Didn't see you,
ma'am.--Yes, I should like a game of checkers--if we can find an island
to play on!"

The day wore on in the hospital. Floors and walls were all scrubbed,
window-panes glistening, a Sunday freshness everywhere. The men agreed
that housecleaning was all right--after it was over. The remnant of the
wounded occupied the lower floor; typhoid, malaria, and other ills were
upstairs. Stores were being brought in, packages of clothing and lint
received at the door. A favorite surgeon made his rounds. He was cool
and jaunty, his hands in his pockets, a rose in his buttonhole. "What
are you malingerers doing here, anyhow? You're eating your white bread,
with honey on it--you are! Propped up and walking around--Mrs. McGuire
reading to you--Mrs. Randolph smilingly letting you beat her at her own
game--Miss Cooper writing beautiful letters for you--Miss Cary leaving
really ill people upstairs just because one of you is an Albemarle man
and might recognize a home face! Well! eat the whole slice up to-day,
honey and all! for most of you are going home to-morrow. Yes, yes!
you're well enough--and we want all the room we can get."

He went on, Judith Cary with him. "Whew! we must be going to have a
fight!" said the men. "Bigger'n Seven Pines."

"Seven Pines was big enough!"

"That was what I thought--facing Casey's guns!--Your move, Mrs.
Randolph."

The surgeon and nurse went on through cool, almost empty spaces. "This
is going," said the surgeon crisply, "to be an awful big war. I
shouldn't be surprised if it makes a Napoleonic thunder down the
ages--becomes a mighty legend like Greece and Troy! And, do you know,
Miss Cary, the keystone of the arch, as far as we are concerned, is a
composition of three,--the armies in the field, the women of the South,
and the servants."

"You mean--"

"I mean that the conduct of the negroes everywhere is an everlasting
refutation of much of the bitter stuff which is said by the other side.
This war would crumble like that, if, with all the white men gone, there
were on the plantations faithlessness to trust, hatred, violence,
outrage--if there were among u