104. A Nurse's Experience
By LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1862)
PRESENTLY Miss Blank tore me from my refuge behind piles of
one-sleeved shirts, odd socks, bandages and lint; put basin,
sponge, towels, and a block of brown soap into my hands with
these appalling directions :
"Come, my dear, begin to wash as fast as you can. Tell them
to take off socks, coats, and shirts, scrub them well, put on
clean shirts, and the attendants will finish them off, and lay
them in bed."
If she had requested me to shave them all, or dance a hornpipe
on the stove funnel, I should have been less staggered; but to
scrub some dozen lords of creation at a moment's notice, was
really really—. However, there was no time for nonsense, and
having resolved when I came to do everything I was bid, I
drowned my scruples in my wash-bowl, clutched my soap
manfully, and assuming a businesslike air, made a dab at the
first dirty specimen I saw, bent on performing my task vi et
armis if necessary. I chanced to light on a withered old
Irishman, wounded in the head, which caused that portion of
his frame to be tastefully laid out like a garden, the
[_]
It is worth while to know how much our fathers endured in the Civil War and how
terrible war is.
bandages being the walks, his hair the shubbery. He was so
overpowered by the honor of having a lady wash him, as he
expressed it, that he did nothing but roll up his eyes, and
bless me, in an irresistible style which was too much for my
sense of the ludicrous;
so we laughed together, and when I knelt down to take off his
shoes, he "flopped "also and wouldn't hear of my touching "
them dirty craters. May your bed above be aisy darlin' for the
day's work ye are doing!—Woosh! there ye are, and
bedad, it's hard tellin' which is the dirtiest, the fut or the
shoes."It was, and if he hadn't been to the fore, I should
have gone on pulling under the impression that the "fut "
was a boot, for trousers, socks, shoes, and legs were a mass
of mud. This comical tableau produced a general grin, at
which propitious beginning I took heart, and scrubbed away
like any tidy parent on a Saturday night. Some of them took
the performance like sleepy children, leaning their tired heads
against me while I worked, others looked grimly scandalized,
and several of the roughest colored like bashful girls. One
wore a soiled little bag about his neck, and as I moved it to
bathe his wounded breast, I said:—
"Your talisman didn't save you, did it?"
"Well, I reckon it did, marm, for that shot would have gone a
couple of inches deeper but for my old mammy's camphor
bag,"answered the cheerful philosopher.
Another, with a gun shot through the cheek, asked for a
looking-glass, and when I brought one, regarded his swollen
face with a dolorous expression, as he muttered:—
"I vow that's bad! I warn't a bad looking chap before, and
now I'm done for. Won't there be a thundering scar? and what
on earth will Josephine Skinner say?"
He looked at me with his one eye so appealingly that I
controlled my laughter, and assured him that if Josephine was
a girl of sense, she would admire the honorable scar, as a
lasting proof that he had faced the enemy, for all women
thought a wound the best decoration a brave soldier could
wear.
The next scrubbee was a nice looking lad, with
a curly brown mane. and a budding trace of gingerbread over
the lip, which he called his beard, and defended stoutly when
the barber jocosely suggested its immolation. He lay on a bed
with one leg gone and the right arm so shattered that it must
evidently follow; yet the little Sergeant was as merry as if his
afflictions were not worth lamenting over, and when a drop or
two of salt water mingled with my suds at the sight of this
strong young body so marred and maimed, the boy looked up
with a brave smile though there was a little quiver on the lips,
as he said:—
"Now don't you fret yourself about me., miss; I'm first rate
here, for it's nuts to lie still on this bed, after knocking about
in those confounded ambulances, that shake what there is left
of a fellow to jelly. I never was in one of these places before,
and think this cleaning up a jolly thing for us, though I'm
afraid it isn't for you ladies."
"Is this you're first battle, Sergeant ?
"No, miss; I've been in six scriminages, and never got a
scratch till this last one; but it's done the business pretty
thoroughly for me, I should say. Lord! What a scramble there
will be for arms and legs when we old boys come out of our
graves on judgment Day. Wonder if we shall get our own
again? If we do, my leg will have to tramp from
Fredericksburg, my arm from here, I suppose, and meet my
body, wherever it may be."
The fancy seemed to tickle him mightily, for be laughed
blithely, and so did I; which, no doubt, causes the new nurse
to be regarded as a light-minded sinner by the Chaplain, who
roamed vaguely about, informing the men that they were all
worms, corrupt
of heart, with perishable bodies, and souls only to be saved
by a diligent perusal of certain tracts, and
other equally cheering bits of spiritual consolation, when
spirituous ditto would have been preferred.
