Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/161

Rh Not many days after my wish was complied with, the examining surgeon came around and visited my old soldier, pronouncing him an impostor. I protested against the decree—that inflammatory rheumatism often gave no outward sign, and that it could not be he was playing us false.

Notwithstanding the arguments so conclusive to myself, they sent him to ride the horse which had neither saddle, nor bridle, nor lines, with which to make the ride agreeable, and I was very miserable thinking of the hard penance which he was undergoing, and the disgrace to his manhood.

But the cure was effectual; he was erect as any man from that day, and always passed me with an averted face, and hurrying step. I was laughed at many a day for my expenditure of unavailing sympathy for the poor old rheumatic soldier.

I believe we had but few such men; death before the foe was not such a dreadful thing, that they could often disgrace the uniform which they wore by such mean shifts.

In direct contrast to this case was an old white-headed man, who came down to us from the One Hundred and Seventy-Ninth N. Y. Volunteers, very ill from the exposure to hardships which in his old age he had no strength to bear up under.

His name was Freer, from Slaterville, N. Y. He was the greatest example of patience and endurance with which I ever met, and he suffered extremely, never through it all uttering a groan, or word of complaint. Sometimes he thought himself at home,