“I wish to goodness they would not send their men here, just to die!” Such was the exclamation, in no very amiable tone, which greeted my ear, as I opened the door of one of the wards of our hospital. “What is the matter, Wilson?” said I, to our usually cheerful wardmaster. “Oh! nothing, miss; I beg your pardon, only there’s a young fellow, just brought in, who, the doctor thinks, can’t live over the day, and I hate to have them dying on my hands, that’s all.” “Wounded or sick?” “It’s the typhoid, and as bad a case as ever I saw yet, and I’ve seen a heap of them, too. There he is, but he’s past speaking; he’ll never rouse again.” I approached the bed, where lay a “young fellow,” truly: a boy, scarcely more than sixteen; his long, thick hair matted and tangled; his clothing torn and soiled; his eyes half closed; his lips dark and swollen; a bright flush on his cheeks, and his breath coming in quick, short, feverish pantings, as though much oppressed. I He swallowed with much difficulty, but still it was something that he could do even this; and I found that although unable to speak, he understood and endeavored to obey, directions. I therefore ventured to doubt Wilson’s verdict, and continued to administer the stimulants as directed. Towards afternoon there was a perceptible improvement in his swallowing; he roused partially, and attempted to turn. I begged Wilson to watch him closely through the night, keeping up the nourishment and stimulants; urging as a motive that, as he wasn’t fond of deaths, this was the best mode of preventing them. He shook his head. “I’ll watch him as close as you could, miss, but it’s no use. I’ve seen too many cases to think that poor lad can weather thro’ it; I reckon you’re new to this sort of thing, or you would know it too.” “Did you ever hear a saying, Wilson, ‘Duties are ours, events are God’s?’ Try, I only ask you to try.” The next morning, when I walked in, I scarcely recognized our patient; in addition to clean clothing, combed and cut hair, his eyes were open, large, bright, and sparkling with a feverish brilliancy. As I drew near, I was a little startled by the abrupt question, “Are you the woman gave me the drinks yesterday?” I assented, sure that no discourtesy was intended by the use of the good old Anglo-Saxon term. Strange, that by some singular freak of language or ideas, which, I think, it would puzzle even the learned Dean of Westminster himself to explain, this once honored title has, at the present day, come to be almost a term of reproach; certainly, as I have said, of discourtesy. Were this the place to moralize, I might see in this change a proof of the degeneracy of modern days; and question, whether in yielding this precious name,—sacred forever, and ennobled by the use once made of it,—Woman is not in danger of yielding also the high and noble qualities which should ever be linked with its very sound. My assent was followed instantly by another equally abrupt question, “Then you’ll tell me where do people go when they die? That man, there—I heard him—said I was dying; I’ve been asking him all night, and he won’t tell me.” “If you will mind what I say now, and try to “I’ll be dead then, and I want to know before I die.” Very sure that any excitement at present must be injurious, after several ineffectual attempts to divert his mind, I deemed it best to leave him, making an excuse of other duties, and promising to return if he would try to keep quiet. The surgeon’s report was favorable; the change in him was quite unexpected, and recovery was possible, though by no means probable. I left him alone, purposely, for some hours; but the moment I re-entered the ward he exclaimed, “Now you will tell me.” Judging it better to quiet his mind, I sat down and spoke to him quietly and gently of his home. Home! the talisman which charms away all pain and soothes all sorrow. Should any one ask how to reach the men? how gain an influence over them? I would reply by pointing them to Napoleon’s policy, or later, to our own Burnside, and let the fields of Roanoke and Newbern bear witness to the success of the experiment. Attack the centre. Storm the heart. Make a man speak of his home. Listen, while he tells with bitter self-reproach, how he enlisted without consent; and how, since then, the night wind’s wail seems mourning mother’s moan; listen to the tearful But this victory, like many another we have won, is a very partial one; the fortress may be gained, but the difficulty is to hold it, and garrison But do not imagine that poor Ennis has been the victim of this digression. After a few moments’ conversation, the eager, excited tone died away, and he told me quietly that he had been brought up in “the woods of Jersey;” had driven a team there, and worked on a farm; spoke of his ignorance with pain; the great grief seemed to be that he could not read; if he should live, wouldn’t I teach him? “Nobody never taught me nothing; will God mind, if I should die?” “Did your mother never teach you your letters?” “She don’t know ’em herself.” A little more talk, and the sentences became broken, the words disconnected, and ere long I left him in a natural, comfortable sleep. He suffered terribly from pain in his head, and the doctor had forbidden all unnecessary noise in the ward. I was therefore not a little surprised the next morning as I approached the door, to hear loud, noisy singing, laughing and talking I paused at the door, hesitating to enter, and knowing the state in which I had left Ennis, both provoked and indignant. Just at that moment, one of the orderlies came out, and to my question as to the meaning of the disturbance, informed me that a new case of violent fever and delirium had just been brought in, and as the other wards were crowded, it had been a necessity to place him here. Thus re-assured, I walked in, when Wilson at once came up to me with, “Oh, Miss —— if you would only try. This man’s out of his head—he can’t live—and the doctor ordered us to find out where his friends are, if possible, and let them know. He has a good deal of money in his knapsack, and we should like to know what to do with it; if his friends are far off, they couldn’t be here in time, but we can’t tell.” “Has he had no intervals of consciousness?” I asked, not caring to show how I shrank from the task. “None, and he won’t have till he goes into a stupor, and then the game’s up.” I was too much worried at the time to ask whether an “interval of consciousness” was supposed to exist during a stupor, as his words seemed to imply, and merely said, “But if you have tried in vain, what object is there in my speaking to him?” As I spoke, a burst of noisy, insane laughter came from his lips, and rang discordantly through the ward; he tried to spring from his bed, but was forcibly held on each side. “Perhaps it’s no good, miss, but it seemed our last chance, and if you’d just try?” Here was a trial. And yet, had I enlisted only for sunny weather? Was I to shrink at the first chance of service? Nevertheless, I did shrink, and, I fear, very visibly, too; but I felt I must go forward, or deserve to be stricken from the rolls. Could the exact springs of all our actions be known, I fear it would too often be seen that they arise in many cases from motives which we should be most unwilling to confess; so in this case, I sincerely believe that it was the shame of uttering the simple truth “I am afraid of him,” which led me straight to his bedside, far more than the benevolent wish of informing distant relatives of his dying condition. “Have you ever heard him mention any of his family at any time?” said I to Wilson, as we crossed the ward, half to keep him with me, and half to know how to address this dreaded, wild-looking creature. “Yes, he did say something once about a sister, The power of the eye I had frequently heard of, and also that a single, direct question, often steadies the unbalanced mind. I could but try them now. I had an indistinct impression, as I drew near, that it would be easier to face the hottest fire of the fiercest foe in the field, than the glare of those eyes; but, trying to look at him steadily, I said, slowly and distinctly, “What is your sister’s name?” He looked at me for a moment, surprised and perfectly silent, and then, to my utter amazement, replied with equal distinctness, “Susanna Weaver.” “Where does she live?” “Westchester, Pennsylvania.” This was so evidently a success, that I ventured further, though doubtful of the result. “How do you direct your letters?” No hesitation, “Mrs. Susanna Weaver, care of James Weaver, shoemaker, Westchester, Pennsylvania.” As he uttered the last word, a man who had just come in, came up to me. “What he says, ma’am, ain’t no use; he’s out of his head, and he don’t mean it.” I said nothing in reply, but was satisfied as to the truth of my own conclusions, when, two days afterwards, I walked in to see the veritable Susanna, My poor Ennis lay for a long time in a low, exhausted state; but the doctor gave hope, and at length he began perceptibly to improve. His eagerness to be taught—more especially upon religious subjects—continued; there was something so simple and childlike about him; so touching in the terror which he felt with regard to death; so winning in his weakness, so gentle in his goodness, or his aims after it, that I could not help becoming deeply interested in him. He knew that there was a God—a Being to be dreaded in his view—a Life after death; beyond this—nothing. Our blessed Lord’s life and death, His work on earth, His giving His life for us, all seemed new and strange ideas which he could with difficulty grasp. Never can I forget the intense interest with which he followed me, step by step, through the dark and dread story of The Last Week; I almost feared the excitement which burned in his eager eyes, till, as I closed, his pent-up feelings found vent in the words, “It was too bad!” His powers of language were limited, not so his powers of feeling; and I imagine that we, to whom that mighty mystery is so familiar from childhood, can scarcely conceive its effect when heard for the first time. “Not you, but I do so want that pretty prayer you know.” The “Prayer for a sick person” from our Prayer-book. I doubt whether any one was ever more gratified, by being told that they were not wanted personally, but merely for what they could bring. I must return here, for a little while, to my old friend, whose delirium and stupor, to the wonder Several weeks passed by, during which I was not at the hospital; and when I returned, what was my surprise to find our patient up, dressed, and seated by the stove. “Why, Jackson, is it possible? How glad I am to see you so much better.” He looked at me without a sign of recognition, rose, bowed, but said nothing. “Don’t you remember me, or what is the matter?” said I, thoroughly puzzled. “I never saw you before, ma’am, did I? Never to my knowledge.” “Well done for you, Jackson!” and “That’s a He looked troubled and bewildered. I saw the whole thing at once. “Never mind, Jackson,” said I, “you have been very ill,—as ill as it was possible to be to recover, and you remember nothing of that time; I suppose it seems like a long dream.” Such was precisely the case. Even the weeks when I had supposed him perfectly conscious, were all a blank; he had not the slightest recollection even of being brought in, and of nothing afterwards until the weeks during which I had been away. My pale, attenuated boy, too, was changed into the round, ruddy young soldier, looking particularly well in his uniform. As is so frequently the case in typhoid fevers, he had gained flesh rapidly, as he recovered, and felt all the buoyancy and brightness of a thorough convalescence. I could not avoid comparing and contrasting the two cases. Both brought in with the same disease; in the same apparently hopeless state; the same surprise excited by the recovery of each; but here the parallel ceased. The one, scarcely more than a child,—a beardless boy, with smooth, polished brow, rising with all the vigor of youth from this terrible illness, and throwing off the disease as completely as though it had never touched him. Ennis soon brought me a spelling-book, given I can scarcely tell why it is, but there are no cases, in all the memories of hospital life, which stand out so clearly stereoscoped upon my brain, as the two of which I have just spoken. |