Chapter 3 - Page 2

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 'em--one 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