ing the
precious privilege, so ardently desired, of being enrolled among those
ready for duty and _to be trusted_. My patient recovered, and returned
to his command, the ---- Mississippi Regiment. His name was D. Babers,
and twenty years after the war I met him once more,--a stalwart,
bearded man, as unlike as possible the pale young soldier who had
lived in my memory. His delight and gratitude and that of his family
seemed unbounded, and so I found the bread once cast upon the waters
very sweet when returned to me "after many days."

Finding that my desultory wanderings among the larger hospitals were
likely to result in little real usefulness, and that the ladies
attached to the Soldiers' Rest would be glad of my help, I became a
regular attendant there. This delightful place of refuge for the sick
and wounded was situated high up on Clay Street, not very far from one
of the camps and parade-grounds. A rough little school-house, it had
been transformed into a bower of beauty and comfort by loving hands.
The walls, freshly whitewashed, were adorned with attractive pictures.
The windows were draped with snowy curtains tastefully looped back to
admit the summer breeze or carefully drawn to shade the patient, as
circumstances required. The beds were miracles of whiteness, and clean
linen sheets, in almost every case, draped and covered them. Softest
pillows in slips of odorous linen supported the restless heads of the
sick. By the side of each cot stood a small table (one or two
old-fashioned stands of solid mahogany among them). Upon these were
spread fine napkins. Fruit, drinks, etc., were set upon them, not in
coarse, common crockery, but in delicate china and glass. _Nothing was
too good for the soldiers_. The school-house contained three rooms.
The school-room proper was quite large, and here were ranged about
thirty beds. One of the recitation-rooms was set apart for patients
who might need special attention or seclusion. The other was occupied
by the ladies whose duty it was to receive and distribute the delicate
and nutritious supplies of food which unfailingly arrived at stated
hours, borne by aristocratic-looking colored servants, on silver
waiters or in baskets covered with snowy damask. During every hour of
the day, gentle women ministered untiringly to the sick. They woke
from fevered dreams to behold kindly faces bending above them, to feel
the touch of soft hands, to receive the cooling draught or welcome