Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/86

54 his suffering agonizing. He said, "O stay with me, Aunt Becky," and I promised to do so, reporting and being assigned to the Second Division of the Ninth Corps, Dr. Snow in charge.

The hospital was located in the Presbyterian Church, and my bed-room the high narrow pulpit, in which I was so cramped and confined I could not lie at ease, even if my nightly vigils were undisturbed by groans and sighs of the wretched men below me.

Poor Fred Bills followed me with his anxious eyes as I went amongst the patients, and I held him upright in my arms many an hour, for in that position only could he obtain repose. He lived eight days, and a dreadful horror seemed to fill his mind at the thought of being buried in an uncoffined grave. He dwelt on the terror of falling an easy prey to the worms, before decay had fastened on his body—he seemed to feel the weight of the stiff clods over his bosom, and exacted from a me promise to see him "buried in a box."

Fortunately I had a dollar in my pocket, and with that bought some boards, out of which one of the boys promised to make a rude coffin, and I saw him laid on the stretcher, with closed eyes, and limbs decently composed, and went back to my work, waiting for the arrival of the rude six feet by two in which we would lay poor Fred Bills in his narrow resting-place.

Looking out at the window a little later, I saw him lying in the wagon to be conveyed to the