Our Soldier Boy | Page 3

whose sunburned face more than one hot tear fell, as loving hands made him up a temporary bed of great-coats in the shade.
"Oh, Tom, Tom!" sobbed the big rough coarse woman, as she knelt there at last after doing all she could, "many's the time that I've prayed that I might have a little boy to call my own; but Heaven knows best, and he might have lived to die like this."
"He ain't a-going to die," said Tom, sniffing again.
"He is--he is; and no doctor near!"
"No," said Tom, with another sniff; "he's miles away, along o' them poor wounded chaps we left behind."
"I can do nothing, nothing more--and he's somebody's bairn!"
"Yes," said the boy hoarsely, "and the Frenchies killed 'em, for Joe Beane telled the men as the sight he see was horrid."
"Hush! Ah, look," whispered the woman, and she bent over the poor little victim, who wailed faintly, "Oh, don't--don't--Ah!"
Then he lay silent and motionless, as his rough nurse softly laid her hand upon the fire-scorched forehead.
"Why, that there ain't Portygeeze," whispered Tom, staring.
"Well, old gal, what about him now?"
"Oh, I don't know, Joe; I don't know. He just spoke a little."
"Poor little nipper. All right, my gal; you'll bring him round."
Tom had ceased sniffing and had turned to give a long stare at the men grouped round the pot, to see that they had done eating and were lighting their pipes.
"Might ha' arxed a pore chap to have had a bit, corporal," he said.
"Ay, we might, lad; but then you see we was all so hungry we mightn't, and you're only a boy."
"Yes, that's it," grumbled Tom, wrenching his bugle round and giving it a vicious polish with his sleeve. "Allus the same; on'y a boy; just as if I could help that!"
"And such a hungry sort o' boy; holler all through. It's a waste to give you good food. That there stoo was evvinly."
Joe turned away from Tom's sour puckered face, to bend over the insensible little patient with a look full of pity, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"I should just liked to have been there, missus, with my bay'net fixed when they cut that little fellow down. Here, I'll sit and have a pipe and keep the flies off him, while you go and pick a bit. The boys wouldn't touch a morsel till I'd put aside some for you and Tom."
That night the 200th was still marching on where they were to camp in the mountains, while on a rough kind of litter formed of a long basket strapped upon the back of a mule, with a couple of great-coats and a blanket for bed, lay the poor child whose life Mrs Beane was trying to save.
It was a long and a weary forced march, for scouts had brought in news which made the officers hope to come in touch of the retreating army before morning, for the news had spread, and during the night the Colonel and officers found opportunities for coming and asking Mother Beane about her little patient.
But there was always the same reply, and Colonel Lavis did not have his uniform mended, neither were any stitches added to Tom Jones's new worsted stockings, for the corporal's wife had all her work to do to try and save her patient's life, and the shake of the head she gave at daybreak told more forcibly than words or the bitter tears she shed, that she had given up all hope.
CHAPTER TWO.
The 200th was in high glee to a man, which is including about twenty men who were wounded not so badly but that they could shout "Hurrah!" For there was a brush with the retreating French, who were driven from the strong camp they had formed, and the little patient had, to use Mrs Beane's words, "begun to pick up a bit."
During the next week of marching and counter-marching the wounded boy began to pick up a good many bits, for the doctor had rejoined the regiment, and he did something to the little fellow's head where beneath the cruel cut he had received the bone was dinted in, and from that hour the change was wonderful. In another week he delighted Mrs Corporal Beane by watching her constantly with wondering eyes, and suddenly asking her who she was.
In her motherly delight she told him "Mother Beane," and he began calling her mother directly, while in another week Corporal Joe had taught the patient to call him Dad, and wondering began.
"Haven't you asked him?" said Joe.
"Yes, as much as I dared, old man, but I'm afraid to do much, because it seems to muddle his poor dear head, and he wrinkles up and tries to think, but he can't."
"But don't he remember who cut him down?" said