Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/95

Rh the matron. They were brief and to the point; all her patients were to be washed and put to bed as quickly as possible.

These directions, although simple, did not appear to the new nurse very easy to follow, but sensibly resolving to put away her scruples, and do as much good as she could, she took her basin and towels and approached the nearest sufferer. He was an old Irishman, wounded in the head, and was at once so brave, so grateful, and so funny, that her task did not seem difficult. Most of the men were at first far too exhausted and sleepy to talk, and merely dozed wherever they chanced to drop down until the smell of food aroused them. But after receiving their rations many became quite communicative, and the new nurse, eager for news, received numerous graphic accounts of the battle, some fierce and brief, some spiced with genuine Yankee humor, as she passed from one bed to another, bathing, bandaging, and feeding her way down the long aisle.

The courage with which the wounded men endured their sufferings, Miss Alcott describes as something marvelous. Rarely did a cry or a groan escape their lips, although during the painful examination and dressing of neglected wounds that day, there was no ether used, the doctors considering it unnecessary because the amputations were deferred until the morrow. One or two irrepressible Irishmen swore at the surgeons or called upon the Virgin, "but as a general thing the work went on in silence, broken only by some quiet request for instruments or plaster, a sigh from the patient, or a sympathizing murmur from the nurse."

The hospital in which Miss Alcott served, and which she has exhibited to the public under the expressive title of "Hurlyburly House," had been a hotel before the war, and was by no means well-suited for the purpose to which