the poetical gem with which I console myself for the untimely
demise of "Nurse Periwinkle:"

Oh, lay her in a little pit,
With a marble stone to cover it;
And carve thereon a gruel spoon,
To show a "nuss" has died too soon.

CHAPTER VI

A POSTSCRIPT.

My Dear S.:--As inquiries like your own have come to me from various
friendly readers of the Sketches, I will answer them en masse and in
printed form, as a sort of postscript to what has gone before. One of
these questions was, "Are there no services by hospital death-beds, or
on Sundays?"

In most Hospitals I hope there are; in ours, the men died, and were
carried away, with as little ceremony as on a battle-field. The first
event of this kind which I witnessed was so very brief, and bare of
anything like reverence, sorrow, or pious consolation, that I heartily
agreed with the bluntly expressed opinion of a Maine man lying next his
comrade, who died with no visible help near him, but a compassionate
woman and a tender-hearted Irishman, who dropped upon his knees, and
told his beads, with Catholic fervor, for the good of his Protestant
brother's parting soul:

"If, after gettin' all the hard knocks, we are left to die this way,
with nothing but a Paddy's prayers to help us, I guess Christians are
rather scarce round Washington."

I thought so too; but though Miss Blank, one of my mates, anxious that
souls should be ministered to, as well as bodies, spoke more than once
to the Chaplain, nothing ever came of it. Unlike another Shepherd,
whose earnest piety weekly purified the Senate Chamber, this man did
not feed as well as fold his flock, nor make himself a human symbol of
the Divine Samaritan, who never passes by on the other side.

I have since learned that our non-committal Chaplain had been a
Professor in some Southern College; and, though he maintained that he
had no secesh proclivities, I can testify that he seceded from his
ministerial duties, I may say, skedaddled; for, being one of his own
words, it is as appropriate as inelegant. He read Emerson, quoted
Carlyle, and tried to be a Chaplain; but judging from his success, I am
afraid he still hankered after the hominy pots of Rebeldom.

Occasionally, on a Sunday afternoon, such of the nurses, officers,
attendants, and patients as could avail themselves of it, were gathered
in the Ball Room, for an hour's service, of which the singing was the
better part. To me it seemed that if ever