"

"I am twice as old as you are!

"No, you 're not; and another thing, you're not big enough!" He raised
his head, surveyed me leisurely and contemptuously, his dark silky
moustache went up against his handsome nose as he sank back and said
slowly:

"Why, you-'re-not-much-bigger-'an-a-bean!"

"Still, I am large enough to take care of you and send you back to your
regiment if you are reasonable: but no one can do anything for you if
you fly into a rage in this way!"

"Yes! and you know that, and you put me in a rage going after them other
fellows. You know I've got the best right to you. I claimed you soon as
you come in the door, and called you afore you got half down the ward.
You said you'd take care of me and now you don't do it. The surgeon give
me to you too. You know I can't live if you don't save me, and you don't
care if I die!"

I was penitent and conciliatory, and promised to be good, when he said
doggedly:

"Yes! and I'll call you Mary!"

"Very well, Mary is a good name--it was my mother's, and I shall no
doubt come to like it."

"I guess it is a good name! It was my mother's name too, and any woman
might be glad to be called Mary. But I never did see a woman 'at had any
sense!"

He soon growled himself to sleep, and from that time I called him "Ursa
Major;" but he only slept about half an hour, when a nurse in great
fright summoned me. They had lifted him and he had fainted.

I helped to put him back into bed, and bathed him until consciousness
returned, when he grasped my wrist with a vice-like hold and groaned.

"Oh God! Oh mother! Is this death?"

I heard no more of Miss Mary, or nice girls; but God and mother and
death were often on his lips.

To the great surprise of every one I quelled the inflammation and fever,
banished the swelling, and got him into good condition, when the foot
was amputated and shown to me. The ankle joint was ground into small
pieces, and these were mingled with bits of leather and woolen sock. No
wonder the inflammation had been frightful; but it was some time after
that before I knew the foot might have been saved by making a sufficient
opening from the outside, withdrawing the loose irritating matter, and
keeping an opening through which nature could have disposed of her
waste. I do not know if surgery have yet discovered this plain,
common-sense rule, but tens of thousands of men have died, and tens of
thousands of others have lost limbs because it was not