DROP MY ALIAS.
The second or third day of my hospital work, Mrs. Gaylord, the
Chaplain's wife, came and inquired to what order I belonged, saying that
the officers of the hospital were anxious to know. I laughed, and told
her I belonged exclusively to myself, and did not know of any order
which would care to own me. Then she very politely inquired my name, and
I told her it was Mrs. Jeremiah Snooks, when she went away, apparently
doubting my statement. I had been in Campbell almost a week, when Dr.
Kelly came and said:
"Madam, I have been commissioned by the officers of this hospital to
ascertain your name. None of us know how to address you, and it is very
awkward either in speaking to you, or of you, not to be able to name
you."
"Doctor, will not Mrs. Snooks do for a name, for all the time I shall be
here?"
"No, madam, it will not do."
I was very unwilling to give my name, which was prominently before the
public, on account of my Indian lecture and _Tribune_ letters, but I
seemed to have at least a month's work to do in Campbell. Hospital
stores were pouring in to my city address, and being sent to me at a
rate which created much wonder, and the men who had given me their
confidence had a right to know who I was.
So I gave my name, and must repeat it before the Doctor could realize
the astounding fact; even then he took off his cap and said:
"It is not possible you are _the_ Mrs. ----, the lady who lectured in
Doctor Sunderland's church!"
So I was proclaimed, with a great flourish of trumpets. For two hours my
patients seemed afraid of me, and it did seem too bad to merge that
giantess of the bean-pole and the press and the tall woman of the
platform both in poor little insignificant me! It was like blotting out
the big bear and the middle-sized bear from the old bear story, and
leaving only the one poor little bear to growl over his pot of porridge.
In Ward Five was one man who had been laid on his left side, and never
could be moved while he lived. His right arm suffered for lack of
support, and when I knelt to give him nourishment from a spoon, and pray
with him that the deliverer would soon come, he always laid that arm
over my shoulders. The first time I knelt there after I was known, he
said:
"Ah, you are such a great lady, and do not mind a poor soldier laying
his arm over you!"
"Christ, the great Captain of our Salvation," I replied, "gathers you in
his arms and pillows your head upon his bosom. Am I greater than he?
Your good right arm has fought for liberty, and it is an honor to
support it, when you are no longer able."
But nothing else I could ever say to him, was so much comfort as the old
cry of the sufferer by the wayside, "Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me."
Over and over again we said that prayer in concert, while he waited in
agony for the only relief possible--that of death; and from our last
interview I returned to the bad ward, so sad that I felt the shadow of
my face fall upon every man in it. I could not drive away death's gloom;
but I could work and talk, and both work and talk were needed.
I sat down between two young Irishmen, both with wounded heads, and
began to bathe them, and comfort them, and said:
"If you are not better in the morning, I shall amputate both those
heads; they shall not plague you in this manner another day."
Maybe my sad face made this funny, for their sense of the ridiculous was
so touched that they clasped their sore heads and shrieked with
laughter. Every man in the ward caught the infection, and I was called
upon for explanations of the art of amputating heads, and inquiries as
to Surgeon Baxter's capacity of performing the operation.
This grotesque idea proved a fruitful subject of conversation, and aided
in leading sufferers away from useless sorrow, toward hope and health;
and bad as the ward was we lost but two men in it.