When our terrible civil war was going on, a mother received the news that her boy had been wounded in the battle of the Wilderness. She took the first train, and started for her boy, although the order had gone forth from the War Department that no more women should be admitted within the lines.
But a mother’s love knows nothing about orders so she managed by tears and entreaties to get through the lines to the Wilderness. At last she found the hospital where her boy was. Then she went to the doctor and she said:
“Will you let me go to the ward and nurse my boy?”
The doctor said:
“I have just got your boy to sleep; he is in a very critical state; and I am afraid if you wake him up the excitement will be so great that it will carry him off. You had better wait awhile, and remain without until I tell him that you have come, and break the news gradually to him.”
The mother looked into the doctor’s face and said:
“Doctor, supposing my boy does not wake up, and I should never see him alive! Let me go and sit down by his side; I won’t speak to him.”
“If you will not speak to him you may do so,” said the doctor.
She crept to the cot and looked into the face of her boy. How she had longed to look at him! How her eyes seemed to be feasting as she gazed upon his countenance! When she got near enough she could not keep her hands off; she laid that tender, loving hand upon his brow.