essary amputation being
deferred awhile, because he begged so hard that the surgeon should
await her arrival. She had to ride all the way on a wagon drawn by a
steer (oh, mothers, can you not imagine the agony which attended that
lengthened journey?), and she was so long detained that I had to take
her place at her boy's side while the operation was performed. The boy
rapidly sunk,--when his mother came was past speaking, and could only
express with his dying eyes his great love for her. Kneeling beside
him, she watched intently, but without a tear or a sob, the dear life
fast ebbing away. The expression of that mother's face no one who saw
it can ever forget.

When all was over, I led her to my own room, where she asked to be
left alone for a while. At last, in answer to the sobbing appeals of
her remaining son, she opened the door. He threw himself into her
arms, crying out, "Buddie's gone, but you're got me, ma, and I'll
never leave you again. I'll help you take Buddie home, and I'll stay
with you and help you work the farm."

The mother gently and tenderly held him off a little way, looking with
burning eyes into his face; her own was pale as death, but not a sob
or tear yet. Quietly she said, "No, my son, your place is not by me; I
can get along as I have done; you are needed yonder (at the front);
_go_ and avenge your brother; he did his duty to the last; don't
disgrace him and me. Come, son, don't cry any more; you're mother's
man, you know."

That same night that mother started _alone_ back to her home, bearing
the coffined body of her youngest son, parting bravely from the elder,
whose sorrow was overwhelming. Just before leaving, she took me aside
and said, "My boy is no coward, but he loved his Buddie, and is
grieving for him; try to comfort him, won't you?"

I did try, but during the whole night he paced with restless feet up
and down my office. At daylight I sat watching his uneasy slumber.

A few weeks later a young wife came by train to visit her husband, who
lay very ill of fever, bringing with her a lovely blue-eyed baby girl
about two years old.

I found a room for her at a house near the hospital, and she was
allowed to nurse her husband. When he was nearly ready to report for
duty, a fearful accident happened by which the baby nearly lost her
life, and was awfully disfigured. At the house where the young wife
boarded there was a ferocious bull-dog, which was generally kept
chained until it sh