Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/107

Rh fashioned, were like the crystal drops which form the sea's great depths, and we meted them out to father, brother, son and lover.

We thought of the maiden who sewed the seams of the coarse hospital shirt, dropping a tear perchance on the garment, when she thought how wounds might pierce one precious body in those stalwart ranks, and hoped some one might do for him what she was striving to do for some other ones beloved.

How little the women thought as they made tiny pillows, stuffing them with hops and soft moss, to lay under wounded arm and limb, of the actual scenes which attended their using amongst the ghastly wounded. Many a bright eye would have grown dim with the tears, could its owner have looked into our hospital tents, and seen the wreck of manliness suffering untold agony with mute lips, and clenched fingers, bearing it all silently.

It was well that they could not follow those gifts down to the place of distribution, else no smiles would have gladdened those faces, and the meetings would have been sad as a funeral gathering.

I met at White House Landing one Christian Commissioner, whose kindness made him universally beloved—whose salutation was always, "Blessings on you," and by that name we knew him in our camp. His kindness to me will never be forgotten, nor the tender solicitude which he expressed for the poor crippled fellows, whose painful torture of body he could not mitigate.

It was distressing to see dying men lying on the