Ch. 18 - Sunrise

THREE months later the war seemed drawing toward an end, and
Christie was dreaming happy dreams of home and rest with David,
when, as she sat one day writing a letter full of good news to the
wife of a patient, a telegram was handed to her, and tearing it open
she read:

"Captain Sterling dangerously wounded. Tell his wife to come at
once. E. WILKINS."

"No bad news I hope, ma'am?" said the young fellow anxiously, as his
half-written letter fluttered to the ground, and Christie sat
looking at that fateful strip of paper with all the strength and
color stricken out of her face by the fear that fell upon her.

"It might be worse. They told me he was dying once, and when I got
to him he met me at the door. I'll hope for the best now as I did
then, but I never felt like this before," and she hid her face as if
daunted by ominous forebodings too strong to be controlled.

In a moment she was up and doing as calm and steady as if her heart
was not torn by an anxiety too keen for words. By the time the news
had flown through the house, she was ready; and, coming down with no
luggage but a basket of comforts on her arm, she found the hall full
of wan and crippled creatures gathered there to see her off, for no
nurse in the hospital was more beloved than Mrs. Sterling. Many eyes
followed her,--many lips blessed her, many hands were outstretched
for a sympathetic grasp: and, as the ambulance went clattering away,
many hearts echoed the words of one grateful ghost of a man, "The
Lord go with her and stand by her as she's stood by us."

It was not a long journey that lay before her; but to Christie it
seemed interminable, for all the way one unanswerable question
haunted her, "Surely God will not be so cruel as to take David now
when he has done his part so well and the reward is so near."

It was dark when she arrived at the appointed spot; but Elisha
Wilkins was there to receive her, and to her first breathless
question, "How is David?" answered briskly:

"Asleep and doin' well, ma'am. At least I should say so, and I
peeked at him the last thing before I started."

"Where is he?"

"In the little hospital over yonder. Camp warn't no place for him,
and I fetched him here as the nighest, and the best thing I could do
for him."

"How is he wounded?"

"Shot in the shoulder, side, and arm."

"Dangerously you said?"

"No, ma'am, that warn't and ain't my opinion. The sergeant sent that
telegram, and I think he done wrong. The Captain is hit pretty bad;
but it ain't by no means desperate accordin' to my way of thinkin',"