Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/218

178 moment, and I would not leave them for all the luxuries of the world.

Home! How the word thrills through my heart with a joyful pang. It is an old, old word, and the old home may answer to it in its dilapidation, but no other spot is half so dear—no other roof, though lofty and gilded high, can draw over us the peaceful restfulness of that moss-patched house-top.

There dwells the old father, and the old mother, there brothers have grown up, and gone thence into the world's great conflict. There childhood played, and youth dreamed of an unclouded future, and woke to maturity to find earthly hopes a cheating vision, and then turned again to its welcoming shelter, glad to escape from the rude buffetings of the stormy sea.

How dear the memory of the old home is to the helpless soldier, as he moans on his hard bed, and cannot sleep for the pain—how he thinks if he could only be there, and they who are always in his thoughts could minister to his wants, that health and strength would soon flow back into his chilled frame.

Alas! oh, alas! for those who shall never see this earthly home again; and why alas! Doth not the promise of the heavenly home await them, with far exceeding loveliness, and the spirit oftimes yearns for it with a longing nigh unto death, and the grave lies peacefully under the sunshine, and they rest from all wars and sickness there.

It is reported that General Sheridan is at the White House, but everything remains quiet at the front, as yet. It is nine o'clock, and bed-time, and I