Chapter 57

FEMALE SUFFRAGE

All that could be done by skill and care and love, was done for Firm. Our lady manager and head nurse never left him when she could be spared, and all the other ladies vied in zeal for this young soldier, so that I could scarcely get near him. His grandfather's sad and extraordinary tale was confirmed by a wounded prisoner. Poor Ephraim Gundry's rare power of sight had been fatal perhaps to the cause he fought for, or at least to its greatest captain. Returning from desperate victory, the general, wrapped in the folds of night, and perhaps in the gloom of his own stern thoughts, while it seemed quite impossible that he should be seen, encountered the fire of his own troops; and the order to fire was given by his favorite officer, Colonel Firm Gundry. When the young man learned that he had destroyed, by a lingering death, the chief idol of his heart, he called for a rifle, but all refused him, knowing too well what his purpose was. Then under the trees, without a word or sigh, he set the hilt of his sword upon the earth, and the point to his heart--as well as he could find it. The blade passed through him, and then snapped off--But I can not bear to speak of it.

And now, few people might suppose it, but the substance of which he was made will be clear, when not only his own knowledge of his case but also the purest scientific reasoning established a truth more frankly acknowledged in the New World than in the Old one. It was proved that, with a good constitution, it is safer to receive two wounds than one, even though they may not be at the same time taken. Firm had been shot by the captain of Mexican robbers, as long ago related. He was dreadfully pulled down at the time, and few people could have survived it. But now that stood him in the very best stead, not only as a lesson of patience, but also in the question of cartilage. But not being certain what cartilage is, I can only refer inquirers to the note-book of the hospital, which has been printed.

For us it was enough to know that (shattered as he was and must be) this brave and single-minded warrior struggled for the time successfully with that great enemy of the human race, to whom the human race so largely consign one another and themselves. But some did say, and emphatically Uncle Sam, that Colonel Firm Gundry--for a colonel he was now, not by courtesy, but commission--would never have held up his head to do it, but must have gone on with his ravings for death, if somebody had not arrived in the nick of time, and cried over him--a female somebody from old England.

And, even after that, they say that he never would have cared to be a man again, never would have calmed his conscience with the reflection, so commonplace and yet so high--that having done our best according to our lights, we must not dwell always on our darkness--if once again, and for the residue of life, there had not been some one to console him--a consolation