"
It was not a long journey that lay before her; but to Christie it
seemed interminable, for all the way one unanswerable question
haunted her, "Surely God will not be so cruel as to take David now
when he has done his part so well and the reward is so near."
It was dark when she arrived at the appointed spot; but Elisha
Wilkins was there to receive her, and to her first breathless
question, "How is David?" answered briskly:
"Asleep and doin' well, ma'am. At least I should say so, and I
peeked at him the last thing before I started."
"Where is he?"
"In the little hospital over yonder. Camp warn't no place for him,
and I fetched him here as the nighest, and the best thing I could do
for him."
"How is he wounded?"
"Shot in the shoulder, side, and arm."
"Dangerously you said?"
"No, ma'am, that warn't and ain't my opinion. The sergeant sent that
telegram, and I think he done wrong. The Captain is hit pretty bad;
but it ain't by no means desperate accordin' to my way of thinkin',"
replied the hopeful Wilkins, who seemed mercifully gifted with an
unusual flow of language.
"Thank heaven! Now go on and tell me all about it as fast as you
can," commanded Christie, walking along the rough road so rapidly
that Private Wilkins would have been distressed both in wind and
limb if discipline and hardship had not done much for him.
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