Daisy In The Field

I thanked him; for the tone of genuine, manly care and

protection, was in my ears for the first time in many a day.

Mamma was very willing to avail herself of it too, and to my

great pleasure received Dr. Sandford and treated him with

perfect courtesy. Rooms were provided for us in one of the

best hotels, and comforts ready. The doctor saw us established

there, and asked what more he could do for us before he left

us to rest. He would not stay to dinner.

"The papers, please," said mamma. "Will you send me all the

papers. What is the news? We have heard nothing for weeks."

"I will send you the papers. You will see the news there,"

said the doctor.

"But what is it?"

"You would not rest if I began upon the subject. It would take

a good while to tell it all."

"But what is the position of affairs?"

"Sherman is in Georgia. Grant is in Virginia. There has been,

and there is, some stout fighting on hand."

"Sherman and Grant," said mamma. "Where are my people,

doctor?"

"Opposed to them. They do not find the way exactly open," the

doctor answered.

"Hard fighting, you said. How did it result?"

"Nothing is decided yet - except that the Yankees can fight,"

said the doctor, with a slight smile. And mamma said no more.

But I took courage, and she took gloom. The papers came, a

bundle of them, reaching back over several dates; giving

details of the battles of the Wilderness and of Sherman's

operations in the South. Mamma studied and studied, and

interrupted her dinner, to study. I took the sheets as they

fell from her hand and looked - for the lists of the wounded.

They were long enough, but they did not hold what I was

looking for. Mamma broke out at last with an earnest

expression of thanksgiving that Sedgwick was killed.

"Why, mamma?" I said in some horror.

"There is one less!" she answered grimly.

"But one less makes very little difference for the cause,

mamma."

"I wish there were a dozen then," said she. "I wish all were

shot, that have the faculty of leading this rabble of numbers

and making them worth something."

But I was getting, I, to have a little pride in Northern

blood. I said nothing, of course.

"You are just a traitor, Daisy, I believe," said mamma. "You

read of all that is going on, and you know that Ransom and

Preston Gary are in it, and you do not care; except you care

on the wrong side. But I tell you this, - nothing that calls

itself Yankee shall ever have anything to do with me or mine

so long as I live. I will see you dead first, Daisy."