brain to recall where he had seen
the face before. Finally he remembered. One of the boys had pointed
him out as an old soldier who had taken to nursing when he could no
longer fight. He held no diploma from any training-school for nurses,
he was uncouth and rough in many ways, but his varied experiences had
made him a valuable assistant to the doctor, whom he called his
general, and obeyed with military exactness.

As Alec stirred on his pillow, the old soldier looked up, and then
hobbled over to the bed as quietly as his wooden leg would allow. He
bent over him, felt his pulse, and then said, cheerfully, "All right,
buddy, guess it's time now for rations." Taking a covered cup from
the hob on the grate, he deftly put a spoonful of hot beef tea to
Alec's lips.

"You had a pretty close call, young man," he said, in response to
Alec's attempt to question him. "A leetle more and it would have been
double pneumonia. But you're about out of the woods now. We'll soon
have you on your feet." Giving his patient a few more spoonfuls, he
drew the covers gently in place, saying, "Now don't you talk any
more. Turn over and go to sleep."

Weak, yet thrilled with a delightful sense of comfort and freedom
from pain, Alec obeyed unquestioningly. True, a thought did trail
teasingly across his mind for a moment, a dim wonder as to where the
money was to come from to pay for the expensive luxuries of nurse and
doctor and medicines and fire, but it faded presently, and instead
his Aunt Eunice's old song took its place:

"I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond--beyond--beyond--"

He groped languidly for the final words, but could not recall them.
"Never mind," he thought, drowsily; "I've got as far as old Jimmy
Scott, and that's a big enough island for this trip."

A most comfortable stopping-place old Jimmy proved to be.

Considerate as a woman of his patient's comfort, cheerful, tireless,
and prompt as a minute-gun in carrying out the doctor's instructions,
it was not long before he had Alec sitting up for a little while each
day. With such an old philosopher to keep him company, and
entertained by the old veteran's endless fund of anecdote, Alec
enjoyed those few days of convalescence more than he could have
believed possible.

"It isn't such a bad sort of world, after all," he remarked one