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consecrated to this work, and as her diary expresses it, she “could not remain at home,” and that if she could be of service in her new sphere of labor she “must return.”
After her brief absence,she re-entered the Georgetown Seminary Hospital.
Death had removed some of her former patients, others had returned to duty, but others whom she left there welcomed her with enthusiasm as the “orange lady,” a title she had unconsciously earned from the fact that she had been in the habit of distributing oranges freely to such of the patients as were allowed to have them.
The experience of life often shows us the importance of little acts which so frequently have an entirely disproportionate result.
Mrs. Parrish found this true in her hospital ministrations.
Little gifts and attentions often opened the way to the closed hearts of those to whom she ministered, and enabled her to reach the innermost concealed thought-life of her patients.
A soldier sat in his chair, wrapped in his blanket, forlorn, haggard from disease, sullen, selfish in expression, and shrinking from her notice as she passed him. To her morning salutation, he would return only a cold recognition.
He seemed to be bristling with defenses against encroachment.
And thus it remained till one day a small gift penetrated to the very citadel of his fortress.
“Shall I read to you?”
she commenced, kindly, to which he replied, surlily, “Don't want reading.”
“Shall I write to any of your friends?”
she continued.
“I hav'n't any friends,” he said in the sourest tone.
Repulsed, but not baffled, she presently, and in the same kind manner, took an orange from her basket, and gently asked him if he would accept it. There was a perceptible brightening of his face, but he only answered, in the same surly tone, as he held forth his hand, “Don't care if I do.”
And yet, in a little time, his sullen spirit yielded-he spread all his troubles before the friend he had so long repulsed, and opening his heart, showed that what had seemed so selfish and
1867.
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