Daisy In The Field

I slept longer than I had meant to do, the next morning; but I

rose with a happy feeling of being in my place; where I wanted

to be. That is, to be sure, not always the criterion by which

to know the place where one ought to be; yet where it is a

qualification it is also in some sense a token. The ministry

of the hours preceding swept over me while I was dressing,

with something of the grand swell and cadence of the notes of

a great organ; grand and solemn and sweet. I entered the ward,

ready for the day's work, with a glad readiness.

So I felt, as I stepped in and went down the space between the

rows of beds. Miss Yates nodded to me.

"Here you are!" she said. "Fresh as the morning. Well I don't

know why we shouldn't have pleasant things in such a place as

this, if we can get them; there's enough that ain't pleasant,

and folks forget there is anything else in the world. Now

you'll be better than breakfast, to some of them; and here's

breakfast, my dear. You know how to manage that."

I knew very well how to manage that; and I knew too, as I went

on with my ministrations, that Miss Yates was not altogether

wrong. My ministry did give pleasure; and I could not help

enjoying the knowledge. This was not the enjoyment of

flattering crowds, waiting round me with homage in their eyes

and on their tongues. I had known that too, and felt the

foolish flutter of gratified vanity for a moment, to be

ashamed of it the next. This was the brightening eye, the

relaxing lip, the tone of gratification, from those whose days

and hours were a weary struggle with pain and disease; to

bring a moment's refreshment to them was a great joy, which

gives me no shame now in the remembrance. Even if it was only

the refreshment of memory and fancy, that was something; and I

gave thanks in my heart, as I went from one sufferer to

another, that I had been made pleasant to look at. Preston

himself smiled at me this morning, which I thought a great

gain.

"Well, you do know how to sing!" he said softly, as I was

giving him his tea and toast.

"I am glad you think so."

"Think so! Why, Daisy, positively I was inclined to bless

gunpowder for the minute, for having brought me here. Now if

you would only sing something else - Don't you know anything

from Norma, or II Trovatore?"

"They would be rather out of place here."

"Not a bit of it. Create a soul under the ribs - Well, this is

vile tea."

"Hush, Preston; you know the tea is good, like everything else

here."