Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/51

Rh heart and soul had entered, which brought in its faithful performance the peace of a life well filled and spent.

April came to us as sunny as when a child I used to wander in the woods by Cayuga's side, searching for all the sweet flowers which sprung up from the dark rich wood mould. I thought to how many this was the last Spring which should drop its flowery offerings at their feet.

Dying men looked into my face beseechingly, and I could give them no hope. They called for wife, and mother, and child in the swift workings of delirium, but no wife, or mother, or child could stand by the death-bed, to hear, as I heard, the dying words.

One lay even then, while the April sun was shining so brightly, asking for her who had promised to stand by him in sickness and in health—in the ravings of his sick fancy calling me by the dear name of her he loved, so happy for the moment to believe she had come to tend him, and nurse him back to life; and while he talked of what they would do when he was at home once more, how my heart ached for the woman who knew not that a few hours would leave her widowed.

Not till the soul had left the precious dust would she know how she was bereft, and the only comfort, if comfort it could be called, would be to gaze upon those mute lips which her own had pressed but a little while before in parting, and know that never a throb of life would pulsate through that still heart again, and the green grass would grow in long summer