nd comfort them, and said:

"If you are not better in the morning, I shall amputate both those
heads; they shall not plague you in this manner another day."

Maybe my sad face made this funny, for their sense of the ridiculous was
so touched that they clasped their sore heads and shrieked with
laughter. Every man in the ward caught the infection, and I was called
upon for explanations of the art of amputating heads, and inquiries as
to Surgeon Baxter's capacity of performing the operation.

This grotesque idea proved a fruitful subject of conversation, and aided
in leading sufferers away from useless sorrow, toward hope and health;
and bad as the ward was we lost but two men in it.

CHAPTER LVII.

HOSPITAL DRESS.

In that sad ward one superior, intelligent young man, who was thought to
be doing well, suddenly burst an artery, and ropes were put up to warn
visitors and others not to come in, and we who were in, moved with bated
breath lest some motion should start the life-current. While his last
hope was on a stillness which forbade him to move a finger, two lady
visitors came to the door, were forbidden to enter, but seeing me
inside, must follow the sheep instinct of the sex, and go where any
other woman had gone. So, with pert words, they forced their way in,
made a general flutter, and, oh horror! one of them caught her hoops on
the iron cot of the dying man. He was only saved from a severe jerk by
the prompt intervention of the special nurse. They were led out as
quietly as possible, but the man had received a slight jerk and a
serious shock. The hemorrhage would probably have returned if they had
not come in, but it did return, and the young, strong life ebbed
steadily away in a crimson current which spread over the floor.

From that day until the end of my hospital work, one fact forced itself
upon my attention, and this is, that with all the patriotism of the
American women, during that war, and all their gush of sympathy for the
soldier, a vast majority were much more willing to "kiss him for his
mother" than render him any solid service, and that not one in a hundred
of the women who succeeded in getting into hospitals would dress so as
not to be an object of terror to men whose life depended on quiet.

Women were capable of any heroism save wearing a dress suitable for
hospital work. The very, very few who laid aside their hoops, those
instruments of dread and torture, generally donned bloomers,