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