Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-01-29

"Mother," she said softly, Il have
decided q question which has troubled
me very much lately. Away of be-
yond those hills lie the battle-fields and
the camps where our wounded men are
lying, dying day after day because there
are so few to nurse them back to life.
You have my sisters here, l a be OF
so little use to you or them, and it is
my duty to go and do what l a for
our soldiers. Do not try to dissuade
me-" as they started up in surprise ana
horror. s'My mind is made up to do
this thing, and I must go. l have
written to one of the nurses, and she
tells me gladly to go. You can not
miss me, and perhaps as there are SO
few there, 1 can be Of some little serv-
ice"
And so she went; unclaspihg the
clinging fingers of the children, smiling
back at the group gathered on the rose
twined piazza of the time-worn home
stead, over whose threshold her light
feet had so often passed and so gaily,
How strange the old home seemed
without her! How plainly the big
rooms told of the absence of a small,
gentle woman, whose voice and eyes
not being there, left so little music and
sunshine.
"Yct," they said, comforting n
another, "Hope was so helpless and
weak, she surely can not stand the
strain on her strength, or be of any use
there in the hospital tents on the battle
field, and will soon return"
But the days and weeks went by and
still Hope Harris did not return, worn
and weary, to the old farmhouse, as
her parents and sisters and friends ex-
pected. Instead. she fitted in and out,
to and fro, among the soldiers lying
helpless upon the rude beds, like an
angel of mercy, with eyes like the
skies, and hair like stray CLEANS Of
sunshine.
She grew brave in the midst of danger.
Her real womanly nature asserted itself
as she ministered to the wounded and
dying. There she found her work
which had slipped past her at home.
Her hands were small, perhaps, and
slender, but strength lay under the
delicate b~lue-veined flesh, while there
reposed in the dainty finger-tips a
magic power that charmed away manya
headache from broad, manly brows.
A woman s hand is an exquisite poem.
with rare, sweet rhythm in curves and
lines.
The hands of Hope Harris were small
and womanly. but the work they ac-
complished was a wonderful work.
Two sturdyyoung men were wounded
and brought to the tents one day, the
n with his right leg gone, the other
minus his left arm.
A nurse was needed. The surgeon
called for Nurse Harris, and without
one word of warning or preparation,
little Hope, Whitehead, but steady,
bent over the bedside where lay broad
shouldered John.
''Hope!" he cried, amazed, starting
up only to fall back helpless among the
pillows, the red blood staining the torn
blue sleeve, while Hope, her lips trem-
bling, but with steady hands, helped
the surgeon in his work of dressing the
terrible wound. And when that was
finished and the big fellow lying quiet,
they went to the other poor soldier,
and up into Hopes set face looked the
boA1AiC O1uC CyCS duN 1CtJUulCs, SUClLl
from pain-of him who had been his
mothers pride and darling-glad-
hearted, mischief-loving jim!
The surgeon said afterward that he
wondered how she stood it, so dainty
and so small she looked, bending above
the painfully set face of the man lying
helpless before her, and added, as
he brushed something from his eyes,
that the hungry look on the big
fellows face rs she leaned down to
him was enough to make the hardest
heart ache. But the recovery of the
two young fellows, he said, was en-
tirely due to the untiring care of the
gentle nurse. While away off in the
farmhouse Hopewas blessed with tears
and prayers for the good that she had
done.
And when the battle was over and all
met around the h~earthstone in the big
homestead, bound in rose vines, the
hearts of each and all swelled with I'M
utterable love and gratitude to the
small, golden-haired, blue-eyed little
lady, who ever afterward was tenderly
cherished as "our Hope to never
again be ''only Hoper'-F. R. Ludluna,
IN the Woman Magazine.