Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/100

66 cheerful face was like sunshine in our ward; we knew him as "Charlie," and he seemed the light of the place, never murmuring, although his good right arm lay festering somewhere, food for worms.

He would say to me, "Now, I can never write any more love letters, Aunt Becky, do you think she will like me as well as ever with only one arm," thus playfully cheering up those whose sufferings were not more than his own, but whose spirits were less sun-shiny to endure them.

One day he called me to him in great alarm, and said, "I think I am dying, I feel such a strangeness there," pointing to his amputated arm. I undid the bandage, and there, rioting on the fresh festers of the wound, were a score or more of white crawling worms. They had produced the uneasy feeling, and as I picked them off he grew quiet again.

We had a call one day from the Provost Marshal, who said to me, "Madam, I must compliment your hospital on being so clean and well aired, and the men looking so comfortably."

Said I, not knowing who he was, and glad that I did not, "We have done the best we could for the poor fellows, and if it had not been for the Provost Marshal would have had bunks also; I wish he lay in the place of that old soldier, and I had the privilege of feeding him hard tack, and seeing him try the soft floor till I was satisfied," and the gentleman, coloring, and stammering, shortly after left us.

Dr. Hays came in directly, saying, "So you've had a call from the Provost Marshal."