ill you go?"

"Of course I will, out of perversity, if not common charity; for some
of these people think that because I'm an abolitionist I am also a
heathen, and I should rather like to show them, that, though I cannot
quite love my enemies, I am willing to take care of them."

"Very good; I thought you'd go; and speaking of abolition reminds me
that you can have a contraband for servant, if you like. It is that
fine mulatto fellow who was found burying his Rebel master after the
fight, and, being badly cut over the head, our boys brought him along.
Will you have him?"

"By all means,--for I'll stand to my guns on that point, as on the
other; these black boys are far more faithful and handy than some of
the white scamps given me to serve, instead of being served by. But is
this man well enough?"

"Yes, for that sort of work, and I think you'll like him. He must have
been a handsome fellow before he got his face slashed; not much darker
than myself; his master's son, I dare say, and the white blood makes
him rather high and haughty about some things. He was in a bad way
when he came in, but vowed he'd die in the street rather than turn in
with the black fellows below; so I put him up in the west wing, to be
out of the way, and he's seen to the captain all the morning. When can
you go up?"

"As soon as Tom is laid out, Skinner moved, Haywood washed, Marble
dressed, Charley rubbed, Downs taken up, Upham laid down, and the whole
forty fed."

We both laughed, though the Doctor was on his way to the dead-house and
I held a shroud on my lap. But in a hospital one learns that
cheerfulness is one's salvation; for, in an atmosphere of suffering and
death, heaviness of heart would soon paralyze usefulness of hand, if
the blessed gift of smiles had been denied us.

In an hour I took possession of my new charge, finding a
dissipated-looking boy of nineteen or twenty raving in the solitary
little room, with no one near him but the contraband in the room
adjoining. Feeling decidedly more interest in the black man than in the
white, yet remembering the Doctor's hint of his being "high and
haughty," I glanced furtively at him as I scattered chloride of lime
about the room to purify the air, and settled matters to suit myself.
I had seen many contrabands, but never one so attractive as this. All
colored men are called "boys," even if their heads are white; this boy
was five-and-twenty at least, strong-limbed and manly, and