University of Virginia Library

100. Gifts for the Soldiers
By MARY ASHTON LIVERMORE (1863)

A POOR girl, who called herself a tailoress, came one day to the rooms of the Commission.

"I do not feel right,"she said, "that I am doing nothing for our soldiers in the hospitals. I must do something immediately. Which do you prefer-that I should give money, or buy material and manufacture it into hospital clothing ? "

"You must be governed by your circumstances,"was the answer made her. "We need both money and supplies, and you must do that which is most convenient for you."

"I prefer to give money, if it will do as much good."

"Very well, then, give money. We need it badly, and without it cannot do what is most necessary for our brave men."

"I will give the Commission my net earnings for the next two weeks. I would give more, but my mother is an invalid, and I help support her. Usually I make but one vest a day, as I do I custom work,' and am well paid for it. But these next two weeks, which belong to the soldiers, I shall work earlier and later."

In two weeks she came again, the poor sewing girl, with a radiant face. Opening her porte-monnaie, she counted out nineteen dollars and thirty-seven cents. She had stitched into the hours of midnight on every one of the working days of those two weeks.

A little girl, not nine years old, with sweet and timid grace, entered one afternoon, and laid a fivedollar gold piece on my desk. Half-frightened, she told its story. "My uncle gave me that before the war, and I was going to keep it always. But he's got killed in the army, and now mother says I may give it to the soldiers if I want to— and I'd like to. Will it buy much for them?"

I led the child to the store-room, and pointed out to her what it would buy—so many cans of condensed milk, or so many bottles of ale, or so many pounds of tea, or codfish. Her face brightened with pleasure. But when I explained that her five-dollar gold piece was equal then to seven and a half dollars in greenbacks, and told her how much comfort could be carried into a hospital with the amount of stores it would purchase, she fairly danced for joy. "Why, my five dollars will do lots of good, won't it?"

Folding her hands before her in a charmingly earnest way, she begged me to tell her something that I had seen in the hospitals. A narration of a few touching events, such as would not too severely shock the child, but which showed the necessity of continued benevolence to the hospitals, brought tears to her eyes, and the resolution to her lips, to "get all the girls to save their money to buy things for the wounded soldiers."And away she ran, happy in the luxury of doing good.

A little urchin who often thrust his unkempt pate into the room, with the shrill cry of "Matches! Matches! "had stood a little apart, watching the girl, and listening to the conversation. As she disappeared, he fumbled in his pockets, and drew out a small handful of crumpled fractional currency, such as was then in use. "Here,"said he, "I'll give yer suthin' for them are sick fellers! "And he put fiftyfive cents in my hand, all in five-cent currency. I was surprised, and hesitated.

"No, my boy, don't give it. I am afraid you cannot afford it. You're a noble little fellow, but that is more than you ought to give. You keep it, and I'll give fifty-five cents for you—or somebody else will."

"Git eout! "was his disgusted commentary on my proposal. " Yer take it, now. P'raps I ain't so poor as yer think. My father, he saws wood, and my mother, she takes in washin', and I sells matches, and Tom, he sells papers, and p'raps we've got more money than yer think. Our Bob, he'd a gone to the war hisself, but he got his leg cut off on the railroad, in a smash-up. He was a brakeman, yer see. You take this, now! "

I took the crumpled currency. I forgot the boy's

dirty face and tattered cap; I forgot that I had called the little tatterdemalion a "nuisance"every day for months, when he had caused me to jump from my seat with his shrill, unexpected cry of "Matches!"and I actually stooped to kiss him.

He divined my intention and darted out on the sidewalk as if he had been shot.

"No, yer don't! "he said, shaking his tangled head at me, and looking as if he had escaped a great danger. "I ain't one o' that kissin' sort! "

Ever after, when he met me, he gave me a wide berth, and walked off the sidewalk into the gutter, eyeing me with a suspicious, sidelong glance, as though he suspected I still thought of kissing him. If I spoke to him, he looked at me shyly and made no reply. But if I passed him without speaking, he challenged me with a hearty "Hullo, yer! "that brought me to an instant halt.