injured, and
the sympathizing soldiers who had gathered around him after deluging him
with snow and water were striving to get him to arise and go with them
to the hospital. A little girl, not ten years old, knelt sobbing and
terrified by his side. She, too, was scorched and singed, and the
soldiers had thrown rough blankets about her; but it was for her father,
not herself, she seemed worried to distraction. Some of the women were
striving to reassure and comfort her in their homely fashion, bidding
her cheer up,--the father was only stupid from drink, and would be all
right as soon as "the liquor was off of him." But the little one was
beyond consolation so long as he could not or would not speak in answer
to her entreaties.

All this time, never pausing for breath, shrieking anathemas on her
drunken spouse, reproaches on her frightened child, and invocations to
all the blessed saints in heaven to reward the gintleman who had saved
her hoarded money,--a smoking packet that she hugged to her
breast,--Mrs. Clancy, "the saynior laundress of Company B," as she had
long styled herself, was prancing up and down through the gathering
crowd, her shrill voice overmastering all other clamor. The vigorous
efforts of the men, directed by cool-headed officers, soon beat back the
flames that were threatening the neighboring shanties, and levelled to
the ground what remained of Private Clancy's home. The fire was
extinguished almost as rapidly as it began, but the torrent of Mrs.
Clancy's eloquence was still unstemmed. The adjurations of sympathetic
sisters to "Howld yer whist," the authoritative admonition of some old
sergeant to "Stop your infernal noise," and the half-maudlin yet
appealing glances of her suffering lord were all insufficient to check
her. It was not until the quiet tones of the colonel were heard that she
began to cool down: "We've had enough of this, Mrs. Clancy: be still,
now, or we'll have to send you to the hospital in the coal-cart." Mrs.
Clancy knew that the colonel was a man of few words, and believed him to
be one of less sentiment. She was afraid of him, and concluded it time
to cease threats and abuse and come down to the more effective _role_ of
wronged and suffering womanhood,--a feat which she accomplished with the
consummate ease of long practice, for the rows in the Clancy household
were matters of garrison notoriety. The surgeon, too, had come, and,
after quick examination of Clancy's condition, h