"THEY'VE come!they've come!hurry up,ladiesyou're wanted.""Who have come?the rebels?"
This sudden summons in the gray dawn was somewhat startling to a three days'nurse like myself,and,as the thundering knock came at our door,I sprang up in my bed,prepared "To gird my woman's form,And on the ramparts die,"if necessary;but my room-mate took it more coolly,and,as she began a rapid toilet,answered my bewildered question,"Bless you,no child;it's the wounded from Fredericksburg;forty ambulances are at the door,and we shall have our hands full in fifteen minutes.""What shall we have to do?"
"Wash,dress,feed,warm and nurse them for the next three months,Idare say.Eighty beds are ready,and we were getting impatient for the men to come.Now you will begin to see hospital life in earnest,for you won't probably find time to sit down all day,and may think yourself fortunate if you get to bed by midnight.Come to me in the ball-room when you are ready;the worst cases are always carried there,and I shall need your help."So saying,the energetic little woman twirled her hair into a button at the back of her head,in a "cleared for action"sort of style,and vanished,wrestling her way into a feminine kind of pea-jacket as she went.
I am free to confess that I had a realizing sense of the fact that my hospital bed was not a bed of roses just then,or the prospect before me one of unmingled rapture.My three days'experiences had begun with a death,and,owing to the defalcation of another nurse,a somewhat abrupt plunge into the superintendence of a ward containing forty beds,where I spent my shining hours washing faces,serving rations,giving medicine,and sitting in a very hard chair,with pneumonia on one side,diptheria on the other,five typhoids on the opposite,and a dozen dilapidated patriots,hopping,lying,and lounging about,all staring more or less at the new "nuss,"who suffered untold agonies,but concealed them under as matronly an aspect as a spinster could assume,and blundered through her trying labors with a Spartan firmness,which I hope they appreciated,but am afraid they didn't.
Having a taste for "ghastliness,"I had rather longed for the wounded to arrive,for rheumatism was n't heroic,neither was liver complaint,or measles;even fever had lost its charms since "bathing burning brows"had been used up in romances,real and ideal;but when I peeped into the dusky street lined with what I at first had innocently called market carts,now unloading their sad freight at our door,I recalled sundry reminiscences I had heard from nurses of longer standing,my ardor experienced a sudden chill,and I indulged in a most unpatriotic wish that I was safe at home again,with a quiet day before me,and no necessity for being hustled up,as if I were a hen and had only to hop off my roost,give my plumage a peck,and be ready for action.A second bang at the door sent this recreant desire to the right about,as a little woolly head popped in,and Joey,(a six years'old contraband,)announced"Miss Blank is jes'wild fer ye,and says fly round right away.They's comin'in,I tell yer,heaps on 'emone was took out dead,and I see him,hi!warn't he a goner!"With which cheerful intelligence the imp scuttled away,singing like a blackbird,and I followed,feeling that Richard was not himself again,and wouldn't be for a long time to come.
The first thing I met was a regiment of the vilest odors that ever assaulted the human nose,and took it by storm.Cologne,with its seven and seventy evil savors,was a posy-bed to it;and the worst of this affliction was,every one had assured me that it was a chronic weakness of all hospitals,and I must bear it.I did,armed with lavender water,with which I so besprinkled myself and premises,that,like my friend Sairy,I was soon known among my patients as "the nurse with the bottle."Having been run over by three excited surgeons,bumped against by migratory coal-hods,water-pails,and small boys,nearly scalded by an avalanche of newly-filled tea-pots,and hopelessly entangled in a knot of colored sisters coming to wash,I progressed by slow stages up stairs and down,till the main hall was reached,and I paused to take breath and a survey.There they were!"our brave boys,"as the papers justly call them,for cowards could hardly have been so riddled with shot and shell,so torn and shattered,nor have borne suffering for which we have no name,with an uncomplaining fortitude,which made one glad to cherish each as a brother.
In they came,some on stretchers,some in men's arms,some feebly staggering along propped on rude crutches,and one lay stark and still with covered face,as a comrade gave his name to be recorded before they carried him away to the dead house.All was hurry and confusion;the hall was full of these wrecks of humanity,for the most exhausted could not reach a bed till duly ticketed and registered;the walls were lined with rows of such as could sit,the floor covered with the more disabled,the steps and doorways filled with helpers and lookers on;the sound of many feet and voices made that usually quiet hour as noisy as noon;and,in the midst of it all,the matron's motherly face brought more comfort to many a poor soul,than the cordial draughts she administered,or the cheery words that welcomed all,making of the hospital a home.
The sight of several stretchers,each with its legless,armless,or desperately wounded occupant,entering my ward,admonished me that I was there to work,not to wonder or weep;so I corked up my feelings,and returned to the path of duty,which was rather "a hard road to travel"just then.
