Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/45

Rh Dr. French went to Annapolis Junction to take charge of some of our regiment stationed there, and our medical corps was sadly broken up. Our sick-list swelled to thirty names, mostly down with fever, and my brother amongst them, prostrate with typhoid fever.

We had enough to eat, and comforts for the sick in a measure, and a box arriving from Sandy Springs, a few miles distant, sent by a Mrs. Deborah Lee, containing wine, jelly, and pickles, furnished cooling drinks for the sick, and many a little bit of relish for the convalescing.

Often we had chickens, and a cow would be milked by some unknown "fairy," and the contents of the pail deposited in our kitchen before the sun was up in the morning.

March, which brought its bitter winds to our Northern hills, came to us with now and then a clear sunny day—a promise of the coming spring. With every streak of golden light came a wild throbbing at my heart, for battles would be fought again—the contending forces only waited for the work of nature's hand to begin again the carnival of death. When her sweet breath had breathed life into the bud, and stem, and tangles of bloom rose in the waste places—then the blue sky with its fresh smile would be clouded with the thick smoke of battle, and the tender grass be dyed with the blood of human hearts.

How could the flowers open in those trampled dells again, where under the blooming tangles the root was yet wet with the gore of last year's carnage?