Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

XVII

Our work at the hospitals was about the same as that we had done before, but more plentiful because there was much more to do. But one memory wakes up as I write, of one job I must tackle, painful then, but pleasant now,— of a man lying on a cot in a condition I cannot describe. He looked toward me with woe-stricken eyes. It was a bad case of camp fever, with all this means. There was so much to do for the wounded that the poor fellow had been left quite helpless in his misery. I saw at once what must be done. I went for towels, soap, and warm water, a clean mattress, bed linen, and a nightrobe, also something for him to take,-my good milk and things. He brightened up when he had taken the milk, and was washed as a mother washes her baby, as he lay on the floor. The foul things were taken away, a brand-new bed was made, his night-robe put on, and, if I had been so minded, he was clean enough now to kiss, the poor forlorn soldier! and, when we left

the hospital, he was getting well. I left him there, and went with a steamer loaded with the wounded down to Mound City, and then went home.

When Lawrence was wrecked by Quantrell and his guerillas with murder and burnings, the good heart of our city was moved to help her. A large sum of money was raised, and, being now, as I suppose, very much a minister at large, I was sent out with the money to relieve those who had survived the massacre and were in need of help. Jeremiah Brown "Jerry," for short went out with me. He was the brother of old John, knew Kansas like a book, and was useful to me as my right hand until the work was over and I came home to make a report in the Chicago Tribune of what we had seen and done.

Sixteen men who had gone from the homes in our city were sent home for burial, and arrangements were made for the services on the next Sunday in our largest hall. The caskets were laid side by side on the platform, draped or covered with the flags. They asked me to take the sermon; but there was no text that day and no sermon of the old pattern, only the story in simple sentences of what we had seen and what

they had done. You felt the great heart beating the grand Amen, and in the psalms and songs. It is told in our Bible of one man that they buried him among the kings because he had done well in Israel. I think we gave our boys the nobler funeral that day. I can never forget that Sunday.

Many prisoners were sent to our city to be held in Camp Douglas, and a committee was elected to see that they were well cared for. I served on the committee, and live to vouch for the care taken for the prisoners. My heart was drawn to them in something more than pity, they were so forlorn; and, when I would talk with them, I found them so simple of heart and true to their own side still.

66

They would say to

me: We were raised in the South, so were our folks; and we belong there now just as you belong in the North, and we fought for our rights. There was no other way, and we'll fight again if we get the chance. Can you blame us?" And I did not blame them, but did not tell. The government gave many of them the option to join our navy and be set free. Very few of them, so far as I remember, took the option; and, when I said to one of them, "Why do you not join our navy and be free?" he an

swered in wonder: "How can I do that? I could never go home again and look my folks in the face."

Many of them were country born and raised, and those who could not write would ask us if we would write a letter home and tell the folks they were alive and well, prisoners at Chicago; or one would blush and stammer trying to tell us what to write. It would be a maiden in that case; perhaps he would not be able to say the words he held in his heart, and we would help him out. Some of us grew quite clever in this sort of letter, and return to the days of our youth; and how glad we were as we would lend a hand!

[ocr errors]

66

The memory touches me now of going one morning through the hospital in the camp where a boy- he was no more beckoned to me, and I went and sat down by his cot. He was very weak, and whispered to me, "Be you a minister, sir?" "Yes," I answered. "A Methodist? " "No." "A Baptist?" "No." "No." This seemed to be the extent of his knowledge; for he said, "What be you, then, sir?" And, when I answered, "I am a Unitarian," he looked at me with a touch of wonder and said: "I never heard of them. What do you believe, sir? I

am dying, and would like you to help me if you can." Then, in the simplest terms I could find in my heart, I told him of our faith in God our Father and of his Christ who came to tell us of his Father's love for all his children, not here and now alone, but forever here and hereafter. He drew a long breath with a sob in its heart when I had done, and said: "That is good, and I thank you, sir. Will you come to see me again, when you are in the camp?" I said yes"; but, when I could go again, he was not there: he had gone to the Father with the message in his heart, a prisoner of hope.

66

So I sit here, and the memories awake of the great old time. Donelson comes out of the mystery of remembrance, and the day when I had a little spell of rest and stood alone by a bit of woodland in the early spring morning, and listened to the birds singing as sweetly and flitting about as merrily as if the tempest of fire and smoke but a week before was clean forgotten, when they were driven in mortal haste away, while at my feet a little bunch of sweet bergamot was putting forth the brown-blue leaves and a bed of daffodils was unfolding to the early spring sun. Our Mother Nature had sent down great rains to wash away the crimson stains, and

« AnteriorContinuar »