Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/180

142 what a thrill of joy will run into every pulse at the coming of the blissful time when the war is ended and the army melts away into the bosom of families, and communities.

Then hands which now wield the death weapon will be turned to the arts of husbandry again, and no more dreadful tidings of death and carnage be borne on the net-work of wires.

But, with all the joy, how many will still be desolate—how many homes will never echo to the sound of returning feet, but forever keep sacred the memory of some brave one who died and found a grave in the sunny South.

Some of our men leave to day on the transport State of Maine, for the General Hospital, at Washington. I wish a greater number were going, where they could have more comforts than we can provide for them.

I had my favorite dish of pigs' feet for dinner, and as they used to tell us each part strengthened a part, I wondered if my pigs' feet would all centre their strength in one foot.

To-day is an anniversary. How well I remember, just fifteen years ago, how bright everything looked to me—with Youth and Hope leading me beyond the rugged paths of common existence, to a clearer and higher atmosphere than pervades this world of sin. How changes came to me—altering the web of life-weaving on the groundwork which should have held roses, and mosses, and trailing leaves, only a dark pattern, fit for a funeral pall.