Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1890-07-24
A VETERAN OF THE WAR.

A Woman Who Served the Country NObly
at n Very Trying Period.
"No," said the gray haired woman, II
am not going to help to decorate the graves.
| ain more accustomed to handling lint
and bandages than flowers is, was
accustomed to it twenty odd years ago,
when l was nursing in a Washington hos
pital. Oh, yes, of course, after soldiers are
dead flowers are better for them than any
thing else, but cannot help laughing even
now, when think of an ill contrived fell
low whose leg we were trying to save, and
who was always in bad humor except
when he was eating jellies and custards.
Just let anybody carry flowers to his cot if
they wanted to hear him break outl oh,
go to thunder with them flowersp he would
say land | can't tell you what kind of
flowers he called 'em); Il thought you was
bringing me something to eat Usually,
unless his leg was hurting him awfully, he
tried to keep from using bad words, but
the sight Of flowers, when he was expect
ing something else, seemed to be too much
for him. He had long siege of it, but at
last he limped out of the hospital on
crutches, and had a letter from him some
months afterward saying he had thrown
his crutches aside.
Hospital nursing hard work2 The
hardest | ever did in my life. You see
went into it without any training. We
army nurses hadn't been taught to spare
ourselves, and we didn't. l thought ut first
I'd have to give up because couldn't sleep
at night for seeing the amputated arms
and legs and other sickening sights that
had been among all day, but | held out to
the last although was one of the young
est nurses in the hospital. When l came
out mt the end of two years. work every
body said looked 10 years older than when
| went in. ! had never been very strong,
and the doctor said was too sympathetic
for such "a profession. | tell you it is a
dreadful thing to hear men begging to be
killed to he put out of their miseryl Some
of the patients were shamming, making
the greatest ado over little flesh wounds,
but these were very few in comparison
with those who were really hurt.
mo, l do no nursing nowadays. The
girls who are graduating every year from
training schools, with their heads crammed
with book learning and familiar with all
the recent discoveries and Improvements in
medicine and surgery, would look down
on q nurse who learned all she knows dur
ing the war. For the last twenty-five years
have been supporting myself as house
keeper. In a hotel9 No, haven't strength
enough for that. Sometimes take care of
widower and his children until he mar
ries again, which he always does too soon
for my convenience, and sometimes keep
house for fashionable lady until go dis
tracted with her pink luncheons and orange
breakfasts and other new tangled arrange
ments. | consider myself n pretty good
manager, but the trouble Is that sometimes
there aren't servants enough for the work
that has to be done, 80 have to fall to and
help, which not only lessons the servants
respect for me, but usually brings on an
attack of nervous prostration that makes
it necessary for me to take resting spell in
working women's home, though | hate
dreadfully TO see money going out when
there none coming in.
"Ought to have n government pension?
Yes, that is what have often been told.
1t is true | wasn't wounded during the
war. | didn't shed any blood for the
Union, but gave it pretty much the same
thing in my strength, and IA pension, no
matter how small it might be, would come
in very well to spare my savings when /
dln OuC vi NOTh, anu tdhe away my uTeul
of being dependent on some one in my old
age. My relations wouldn't let me go to
the almshouse, | know, but if |. cannot
save up enough for little rest in the end
| hope and trust | may die in harness.
There's many a years work in me yet, if
what strength have left doesn't give way
completely; though it is discouraging to
receive smaller salaries every time | make
change as the years 20 by."-New York
us.ssI.