L. P. Brockett, The camp, the battlefield, and the hospital: or, lights and shadows of the great rebellion

[320] bright, hopeful disposition, even temper, and uniform cheerfulness, were great aids to his recovery; and we watched his improvement with great satisfaction, and at last had the pleasure of seeing him able to be up, and even out, for a short time.

He came to me, one morning, in our ladies' room, saying, “Miss , would it be troubling you too much to ask you to write to mother?”

“Brought to it at last!” said I. “Why do you ask me now, Robinson, when you have refused so often before, and can write for yourself?”

“ That's just it; she wont believe what I say; thinks I'm fooling her, and pretending to be better than I really am; and has an idea they're going to take my arm off, and I'm keeping it from her; and I thought if you'd just write, and tell her it wasn't coming off, she'd be sure to believe you.”

“ Sure to believe a stranger in preference to her own son, Robinson? Does that tell well for the son.”

“ Yes, ma'am, I think so; she knows you could have no object in deceiving her; while the thing I care most for in the world is to keep her from fretting, and she knows it.”

There was no combating this reasoning, and in a short time I received a beautiful answer to my letter, well written and well expressed, confirming all that Robinson had told us: that he was the youngest son, and had always been carefully and tenderly brought up; that he had two brothers, the only other children-one had gone to Texas, before the breaking out of the rebellion, and never having heard from him since, they feared he had been pressed into the rebel service; fortunately