FIND WORK.
That morning I wrote to the New York _Tribune,_ relating the incident of
the man asking for cooling drinks, and saying that if people furnished
the material, I would devote my time to distributing their gifts. Next
morning I got two dozen lemons, pressed the juice into a jar, put in
sugar, took a glass and spoon and, so soon as visitors were admitted,
began giving lemonade to those men who seemed to have most need. Going
to the water tank for every glass of water made it slow work, but I
improved my walks by talking to the men, hearing their wants and adding
to their stock of hope and cheerfulness, and was glad to see that the
nurses did not seem to object to my presence, even though Campbell was
the one only hospital in the city from which female nurses were
rigorously excluded.
So noted had it become for the masculine pride of its management, that I
had been warned not to stay past the length of an ordinary visit, lest I
should be roughly told to go away; and my surprise was equal to my
pleasure, when a man came and said:
"Would it not be easier for you if you had a pitcher?"
I said it would, but that I lived too far away to bring one.
"Oh! I will bring you a pitcher! Why did you not ask for one?"
"I did not want to trouble you, for they told me you did not like to
have women here." He laughed, and said: "I guess we'll all be glad
enough to have you! Not many of your sort. First thing they all do is to
begin to make trouble, and it always takes two men to wait on one of
them."
He brought the pitcher, and I felt that I was getting on in the world.
Still I was very humble and careful to win the favor of "the King's
Chamberlain"--those potencies, the nurses, who might report me to that
Royal woman-hater, Dr. Baxter, surgeon in charge, whose name was a
terror to women who intruded themselves into military hospitals.
As I passed, with my pitcher, I saw one man delerious, and
expectorating, profusely, a matter green as grass could be--knew this
was hospital gangrene, and remembered all Dr. Palmer had told me years
before, of his experience in Paris hospitals, and the antidotes to that
and scurvey poison. Indeed, the results of many conversations with
first-class physicians, and of some reading on the subject of camp
diseases, came to me; and I knew just what was wanted here, but saw no
sign that the want was likely to be supplied. For this man it was too
late, but I could not see that anything was being done to prevent the
spread of this fearful scourge.
Passing from that ward into the one adjoining, I came suddenly upon two
nurses dressing a thigh stump, while the patient filled the air with
half-suppressed shrieks and groans. I had never before seen a stump, but
remembered Dr. Jackson's lecture over the watermellon at desert, on
amputation, for the benefit of Charles Sumner; and electricity never
brought light quicker than there came to me the memory of all he had
said about the proper arrangement of the muscles over the end of the
bone; and added to this, came a perfect knowledge of the relations of
those mangled muscles to the general form of the body. I saw that the
nurse who held the stump tortured the man by disregarding natural law,
and setting down pitcher and glass on the floor, I stepped up, knelt,
slipped my hands under the remains of that strong thigh, and said to the
man who held it:
"Now, slip out your hands! easy! easy! there!" The instant it rested on
my hands the groans ceased, and I said:
"Is that better?"
"Oh, my God! yes!"
"Well, then, I will always hold it when it is dressed!"
"But you will not be here!"
"I will come!"
"That would be too much trouble!"
"I have nothing else to do, and will think it no trouble!"
The nurse, who did the dressing, was very gentle, and there was no more
pain; but I saw that the other leg was amputated below the knee, and
this was a double reason why he should be tenderly cared for. So I took
the nurse aside, and asked when the wounds were to be dressed again. He
said in the morning, and promised to wait until I came to help. Next
morning I was so much afraid of being late that I would not wait for the
street cars to begin running, but walked. The guard objected to
admitting me, as it was not time for visitors, but I explained and he
let me pass. I must not go through the wards at that hour, so went
around and came in by the door near which he lay. What was my surprise
to find that not only were his wounds dressed, but that all his clothing
and bed had been changed, and everything about him made as white and
neat and square as if he were a corpse, which he more resembled than a
living man. Oh, what a tribute of agony he had paid to the demon of
appearance! We all pay heavy taxes to other people's eyes; but on none
is the levy quite so onerous as on the patients of a model hospital! I
saw that he breathed and slept, and knew his time was short; but sought
the head nurse, and asked why he had not waited for me; he hesitated,
stammered, blushed and said:
"Why, the fact is, sister, he has another wound that it would not be
pleasant for you to see."
"Do you mean that that man has a groin wound in addition to all else?"
"Yes, sister! yes! and I thought--"
"No matter what you thought, you have tortured him to save your
mock-modesty and mine. You could have dressed that other wound, covered
him, and let me hold the stump. You saw what relief it gave him
yesterday. How could you--how dare you torture him?"
"Well, sister, I have been in hospitals with sisters a great deal, and
they never help to dress wounds. I thought you would not get leave to
come. Would not like to."
"I am not a sister, I am a mother; and that man had suffered enough. Oh,
how dared you? how dared you to do such a thing?" I wrung my hands, and
he trembled like a leaf, and said.
"It was wrong, but I did not know. I never saw a sister before--"
"I tell you I am no sister, and I cannot think whatever your sisters are
good for."
He promised to let me help him whenever it would save pain, and I
returned to the dying man. The sun shone and birds sang. He stirred,
opened his eyes, smiled to see me, and said.
"It is a lovely morning, and I will soon be gone."
I said, "Yes; the winter of your life is past; for you the reign of
sorrow is over and gone; the spring time appears on the earth, and the
time for the singing of birds has come; your immortal summer is close at
hand; Christ, who loveth us, and has suffered for us, has prepared
mansions of rest, for those who love him, and you are going soon."
"Oh, yes; I know he will take me home, and provide for my wife and
children when I am gone."
"Then all is well with you!" He told me his name and residence, in
Pittsburg, and I remembered that his parents lived our near neighbors
when I was a child. So, more than ever, I regretted that I could not
have made his passage through the dark valley one of less pain; but it
was a comfort to his wife to know I had been with him.
When he slept again, I got a slightly wounded man to sit by him and keep
away the flies, while I went to distribute some delicacies brought to
him by visitors, and which he would never need.
At the door of Ward Three, a large man stood, and seemed to be an
officer. I asked him if there were any patients in that ward who would
need wine penado. He looked down at me, pleasantly, and said:
"I think it very likely, madam, for it is a very bad ward."
It was indeed a very bad ward, for a settled gloom lay upon the faces of
the occupants, who suffered because the ward-master and entire set of
nurses had recently been discharged, and new, incompetent men appointed
in their places.
As I passed down, turning from right to left, to give to such men as
needed it the mild stimulant I had brought, I saw how sad and hopeless
they were; only one man seemed inclined to talk, and he sat near the
centre of the ward, while some one dressed his shoulder from which the
arm had been carried away by a cannon ball. A group of men stood around
him, talking of that strange amputation, and he was full of chat and
cheerfulness.
They called him Charlie; but my attention was quickly drawn to a young
man, on a cot, close by, who was suffering torture from the awkwardness
of a nurse who was dressing a large, flesh-wound on the outside of his
right thigh.
I set my bowl on the floor, caught the nurse's wrist, lifted his hand
away, and said:
"Oh, stop! you are hurting that man! Let me do that!"
He replied, pleasantly,
"I'll be very glad to, for I'm a green hand!"
I took his place; saw the wounded flesh creep at the touch of cold
water, and said: "Cold water hurts you!"
"Yes ma'am; a little!"
"Then we must have some warm!" But nurse said there was none.
"No warm water?" I exclaimed, as I drew back and looked at him, in blank
astonishment.
"No, ma'am! there's no warm water!"
"How many wounded men have you in this hospital?"
"Well, about seven hundred, I believe."
"About seven hundred wounded men, and no warm water! So none of them get
anything to eat!"
"Oh, yes! they get plenty to eat."
"And how do you cook without warm water?"
"Why, there's plenty of hot water in the kitchen, but we're not allowed
to go there, and we have none in the wards."
"Where is the kitchen?"
He directed me. I covered the wound--told the patient to wait and I
would get warm water. In the kitchen a dozen cooks stopped to stare at
me, but one gave me what I came for, and on returning to the ward I said
to Charlie:
"Now you can have some warm water, if you want it."
"But I do not want it! I like cold water best!"
"Then it is best for you, but it is not best for this man!"
I had never before seen any such wound as the one I was dressing, but I
could think of but one way--clean it thoroughly, put on clean lint and
rags and bandages, without hurting the patient, and this was very easy
to do; but while I did this, I wanted to do something more, viz.: dispel
the gloom which hung over that ward. I knew that sick folks should have
their minds occupied by pleasant thoughts, and never addressed an
audience with more care than I talked to that one man, in appearance,
while really talking to all those who lay before me and some to whom my
back was turned.
I could modulate my voice so as to be heard at quite a distance, and yet
cause no jar to very sensitive nerves close at hand; and when I told my
patient that I proposed to punish him now, while he was in my power, all
heard and wondered; then every one was stimulated to learn that it was
to keep him humble, because, having received such a wound in the charge
on Marie's Hill, he would be so proud by and by that common folks would
be afraid to speak to him. I should be quite thrown into the shade by
his laurels, and should probably take my revenge in advance by sticking
pins in him now, when he could not help himself.
This idea proved to be quite amusing, and before I had secured that
bandage, the men seemed to have forgotten their wounds, except as a
source of future pride, and were firing jokes at each other as rapidly
as they had done bullets at the enemy. When, therefore, I proposed
sticking pins into any one else who desired such punishment, there was
quite a demand for my services, and with my basin of tepid water I
started to wet the hard, dry dressings, and leave them to soften before
being removed. Before night I discovered that lint is an instrument of
incalculable torture, and should never be used, as either blood or pus
quickly converts some portion of it into splints, as irritating as a
pine shaving.