第16章 A NIGHT.(3)

Any thing more supremely ridiculous can hardly be imagined than this figure,scantily draped in white,its one foot covered with a big blue sock,a dingy cap set rakingly askew on its shaven head,and placid satisfaction beaming in its broad red face,as it flourished a mug in one hand,an old boot in the other,calling them canteen and knapsack,while it skipped and fluttered in the most unearthly fashion.What to do with the creature I didn't know;Dan was absent,and if I went to find him,the perambulator might festoon himself out of the window,set his toga on fire,or do some of his neighbors a mischief.The attendant of the room was sleeping like a near relative of the celebrated Seven,and nothing short of pins would rouse him;for he had been out that day,and whiskey asserted its supremacy in balmy whiffs.Still declaiming,in a fine flow of eloquence,the demented gentleman hopped on,blind and deaf to my graspings and entreaties;and I was about to slam the door in his face,and run for help,when a second and saner phantom,"all in white,"came to the rescue,in the likeness of a big Prussian,who spoke no English,but divined the crisis,and put an end to it,by bundling the lively monoped into his bed,like a baby,with an authoritative command to "stay put,"which received added weight from being delivered in an odd conglomeration of French and German,accompanied by warning wags of a head decorated with a yellow cotton night cap,rendered most imposing by a tassel like a bell-pull.Rather exhausted by his excursion,the member from Pennsylvania subsided;and,after an irrepressible laugh together,my Prussian ally and myself were returning to our places,when the echo of a sob caused us to glance along the beds.

It came from one in the corner­such a little bed!­and such a tearful little face looked up at us,as we stopped beside it!The twelve years old drummer boy was not singing now,but sobbing,with a manly effort all the while to stifle the distressful sounds that would break out.

"What is it,Teddy?"I asked,as he rubbed the tears away,and checked himself in the middle of a great sob to answer plaintively:

"I've got a chill,ma'am,but I aint cryin'for that,'cause I'm used to it.I dreamed Kit was here,and when I waked up he wasn't,and I couldn't help it,then."The boy came in with the rest,and the man who was taken dead from the ambulance was the Kit he mourned.Well he might;for,when the wounded were brought from Fredericksburg,the child lay in one of the camps thereabout,and this good friend,though sorely hurt himself,would not leave him to the exposure and neglect of such a time and place;but,wrapping him in his own blanket,carried him in his arms to the transport,tended him during the passage,and only yielded up his charge when Death met him at the door of the hospital which promised care and comfort for the boy.For ten days,Teddy had shivered or burned with fever and ague,pining the while for Kit,and refusing to be comforted,because he had not been able to thank him for the generous protection,which,perhaps,had cost the giver's life.

The vivid dream had wrung the childish heart with a fresh pang,and when I tried the solace fitted for his years,the remorseful fear that haunted him found vent in a fresh burst of tears,as he looked at the wasted hands I was endeavoring to warm:

"Oh!if I'd only been as thin when Kit carried me as I am now,maybe he wouldn't have died;but I was heavy,he was hurt worser than we knew,and so it killed him;and I didn't see him,to say good bye."This thought had troubled him in secret;and my assurances that his friend would probably have died at all events,hardly assuaged the bitterness of his regretful grief.

At this juncture,the delirious man began to shout;the one-legged rose up in his bed,as if preparing for another dart,Teddy bewailed himself more piteously than before:and if ever a woman was at her wit's end,that distracted female was Nurse Periwinkle,during the space of two or three minutes,as she vibrated between the three beds,like an agitated pendulum.

Like a most opportune reinforcement,Dan,the bandy,appeared,and devoted himself to the lively party,leaving me free to return to my post;for the Prussian,with a nod and a smile,took the lad away to his own bed,and lulled him to sleep with a soothing murmur,like a mammoth humble bee.

I liked that in Fritz,and if he ever wondered afterward at the dainties which sometimes found their way into his rations,or the extra comforts of his bed,he might have found a solution of the mystery in sundry persons' knowledge of the fatherly action of that night.

Hardly was I settled again,when the inevitable bowl appeared,and its bearer delivered a message I had expected,yet dreaded to receive:

"John is going,ma'am,and wants to see you,if you can come.""The moment this boy is asleep;tell him so,and let me know if I am in danger of being too late."My.Ganymede departed,and while I quieted poor Shaw,I thought of John.

He came in a day or two after the others;and,one evening,when I entered my "pathetic room,"I found a lately emptied bed occupied by a large,fair man,with a fine face,and the serenest eyes I ever met.One of the earlier comers had often spoken of a friend,who had remained behind,that those apparently worse wounded than himself might reach a shelter first.It seemed a David and Jonathan sort of friendship.The man fretted for his mate,and was never tired of praising John­his courage,sobriety,self-denial,and unfailing kindliness of heart;always winding up with:"He's an out an'out fine feller,ma'am;you see if he aint."