"My dear girl,we shall have you sick in your bed,unless you keep yourself warm and quiet for a few days.Widow Wadman can take care of the ward alone,now the men are so comfortable,and have her vacation when you are about again.Now do be prudent in time,and don't let me have to add a Periwinkle to my bouquet of patients."This advice was delivered,in a paternal manner,by the youngest surgeon in the hospital,a kind-hearted little gentleman,who seemed to consider me a frail young blossom,that needed much cherishing,instead of a tough old spinster,who had been knocking about the world for thirty years.At the time I write of,he discovered me sitting on the stairs,with a nice cloud of unwholesome steam rising from the washroom;a party of January breezes disporting themselves in the halls;and perfumes,by no means from "Araby the blest,"keeping them company;while I enjoyed a fit of coughing,which caused my head to spin in a way that made the application of a cool banister both necessary and agreeable,as I waited for the frolicsome wind to restore the breath I'd lost;cheering myself,meantime,with a secret conviction that pneumonia was waiting for me round the corner.This piece of advice had been offered by several persons for a week,and refused by me with the obstinacy with which my sex is so richly gifted.But the last few hours had developed several surprising internal and external phenomena,which impressed upon me the fact that if I didn't make a masterly retreat very soon,I should tumble down somewhere,and have to be borne ignominiously from the field.My head felt like a cannon ball;my feet had a tendency to cleave to the floor;the walls at times undulated in a most disagreeable manner;people looked unnaturally big;and the "very bottles on the mankle shelf"appeared to dance derisively before my eyes.Taking these things into consideration.while blinking stupidly at Dr.Z.,I resolved to retire gracefully,if I must;so,with a valedictory to my boys,a private lecture to Mrs.Wadman,and a fervent wish that I could take off my body and work in my soul,I mournfully ascended to my apartment,and Nurse P was reported off duty.
For the benefit of any ardent damsel whose patriotic fancy may have surrounded hospital life with a halo of charms,I will briefly describe the bower to which I retired,in a somewhat ruinous condition.It was well ventilated,for five panes of glass had suffered compound fractures,which all the surgeons and nurses had failed to heal;the two windows were draped with sheets,the church hospital opposite being a brick and mortar Argus,and the female mind cherishing a prejudice in favor of retiracy during the night-capped periods of existence.A bare floor supported two narrow iron beds,spread with thin mattresses like plasters,furnished with pillows in the last stages of consumption.In a fire place,guiltless of shovel,tongs,andirons,or grate,burned a log inch by inch,being too long to to go on all at once;so,while the fire blazed away at one end,I did the same at the other,as I tripped over it a dozen times a day,and flew up to poke it a dozen times at night.A mirror (let us be elegant !)of the dimensions of a muffin,and about as reflective,hung over a tin basin,blue pitcher,and a brace of yellow mugs.Two invalid tables,ditto chairs,wandered here and there,and the closet contained a varied collection of bonnets,bottles,bags,boots,bread and butter,boxes and bugs.The closet was a regular Blue Beard cupboard to me;I always opened it with fear and trembling,owing to rats,and shut it in anguish of spirit;for time and space were not to be had,and chaos reigned along with the rats.Our chimney-piece was decorated with a flat-iron,a Bible,a candle minus stick,a lavender bottle,a new tin pan,so brilliant that it served nicely for a pier-glass,and such of the portly black bugs as preferred a warmer climate than the rubbish hole afforded.Two arks,commonly called trunks,lurked behind the door,containing the worldly goods of the twain who laughed and cried,slept and scrambled,in this refuge;while from the white-washed walls above either bed,looked down the pictured faces of those whose memory can make for us-"One little room an everywhere."For a day or two I managed to appear at meals;for the human grub must eat till the butterfly is ready to break loose,and no one had time to come up two flights while it was possible for me to come down.Far be it from me to add another affliction or reproach to that enduring man,the steward;for,compared with his predecessor,he was a horn of plenty;but-I put it to any candid mind-is not the following bill of fare susceptible of improvement,without plunging the nation madly into debt ?The three meals were "pretty much of a muchness,"and consisted of beef,evidently put down for the men of '76;pork,just in from the street;army bread,composed of saw-dust and saleratus;butter,salt as if churned by Lot's wife;stewed blackberries,so much like preserved cockroaches,that only those devoid of imagination could partake thereof with relish;coffee,mild and muddy;tea,three dried huckleberry leaves to a quart of water-flavored with lime-also animated and unconscious of any approach to clearness.Variety being the spice of life,a small pinch of the article would have been appreciated by the hungry,hard-working sisterhood,one of whom,though accustomed to plain fare,soon found herself reduced to bread and water;having an inborn repugnance to the fat of the land,and the salt of the earth.
