choking
just audible in his throat. An attendant sat beside him and would not
leave till the last. The ordinary chat and hum of the ward went on
indifferent to peace, victory, life, or death. Before the finality of the
hospital all other events of earth fade. Some were playing cards or
checkers, some laughing and joking, and others reading.

At the first soft note from the singer the games ceased, and the reader
put down his book.

The banjo had come to Washington with the negroes following the wake of
the army. She had laid aside her guitar and learned to play all the
stirring camp songs of the South. Her voice was low, soothing, and tender.
It held every silent listener in a spell.

As she played and sang the songs the wounded man loved, her eyes lingered
in pity on his sun-bronzed face, pinched and drawn with fever. He was
sleeping the stupid sleep that gives no rest. She could count the
irregular pounding of his heart in the throb of the big vein on his neck.
His lips were dry and burnt, and the little boyish moustache curled upward
from the row of white teeth as if scorched by the fiery breath.

He began to talk in flighty sentences, and she listened--his mother--his
sister--and yes, she was sure as she bent nearer--a little sweetheart who
lived next door. They all had sweethearts--these Southern boys. Again he
was teasing his dog--and then back in battle.

At length he opened his eyes, great dark-brown eyes, unnaturally bright,
with a strange yearning look in their depths as they rested on Elsie. He
tried to smile and feebly said:

"Here's--a--fly--on--my--left--ear--my--guns--can't--somehow--
reach--him--won't--you--"

She sprang forward and brushed the fly away.

Again he opened his eyes.

"Excuse--me--for--asking--but am I alive?"

"Yes, indeed," was the cheerful answer.

"Well, now, then, is this me, or is it not me, or has a cannon shot me, or
has the devil got me?"

"It's you. The cannon didn't shoot you, but three muskets did. The devil
hasn't got you yet, but he will unless you're good."

"I'll be good if you won't leave me----"

Elsie turned her head away smiling, and he went on slowly:

"But I'm dead, I know. I'm sleeping on a cot with a canopy over it. I
ain't hungry any more, and an angel has been hovering over me playing on a
harp of gold----"

"Only a little Yankee girl playing the banjo."

"Can't fool me--I'm in heaven."

"You're in the hospital."

"Funny hospital--look at t