Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/291

Rh delirious with fever. He had been devoted in his attentions to a poor fellow who was dying in one of the outside tents from a gangrened wound, and in some way that subtlest and most dangerous of poisons had penetrated his veins. For several days he lay at the point of death; a general gloom pervaded the hospital; the surgeon-in-charge himself spent hours at Joe's bedside; everybody grieved at the thought of the brave, cheery fellow's dying. But Joe's time to die was a long way off yet; good blood, and a constitution made strong by an early out-door life on a farm, triumphed,—to everybody's surprise and joy. Joe began to get well. He was as weak as a new-born infant at first, and sat propped up in his bed among pillows, fed by spoonfuls at a time, looking a strange mixture of giant and baby. There was great danger of Joe's being spoiled now. it became such a fashion to pet him. All the visitors wanted to see him; everybody brought him something, generally something to eat; as for quince marmalade and tamarinds, for years afterward the very name of them made Joe ill, he had such a surfeit of them now. Every day, as soon as his too generous friends had left the ward, he would summon the boys around his bed and distribute his supplies; and very sumptuously that ward fared for a good many weeks. Foremost and most devoted among Joe's admirers was Clara Winthrop. There were petty-minded and gossiping people about who even declared that Miss