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While her brothers and sisters were putting out their lights at New Durham, heart-sick and wounded, Huldah was sitting in that still room, where only the rough broken breathing of poor Horace broke the sound. She was changing, once in ten minutes, the ice-water cloths; was feeling of his feet sometimes; wetting his tongue once or twice in an hour; putting her finger to his pulse with a native sense, which needed no second-hand to help it; and all the time, with the thought of him, was remembering how grieved and hurt and heart-broken they were at home. Every half-hour or less, a pale face appeared at the door; and Huldah just slid across the room, and said, “He is really doing nicely, pray lie down;” or, “His pulse is surely better, I will certainly come to you if it flags;” or “Pray trust me, I will not let you wait a moment if he needs you;” or, “Pray get ready for to-morrow. An hour’s sleep now will be worth everything to you then.” And the poor mother would crawl back to her baby and her bed, and pretend to try to sleep; and in half an hour would appear again at the door. One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock. How companionable Dr. Lowell’s clock seems when one is sitting up so, with no one else to talk to! Four o’clock at last; it is really growing to be quite intimate. Five o’clock. “If I were in dear Durham now, one of the roosters would be calling,”–Six o’clock. Poor Horace stirs, turns, flings his arm over. “Mother–O Huldah! is it you? How nice that is!” And he is unconscious again; but he had had sense enough to know her. What a blessed Christmas present that is, to tell that to his poor mother when she slides in at daybreak, and says, “You shall go to bed now, dear child. You see I am very fresh; and you must rest yourself, you know. Do you really say he knew you? Are you sure he knew you? Why, Huldah, what an angel of peace you are!”

So opened Huldah’s Christmas morning.

* * * * *

Days of doubt, nights of watching. Every now and then the boy knows his mother, his father, or Huldah. Then will come this heavy stupor which is so different from sleep. At last the surgeons have determined that a piece of the bone must come away. There is the quiet gathering of the most skilful at the determined hour; there is the firm table for the little fellow to lie on; here is the ether and the sponge; and, of course, here and there, and everywhere, is Huldah. She can hold the sponge, or she can fetch and carry; she can answer at once if she is spoken to; she can wait, if it is waiting; she can act, if it is acting. At last the wretched little button, which has been pressing on our poor boy’s brain, is lifted safely out. It is in Morton’s hand; he smiles and nods at Huldah as she looks inquiry, and she knows he is satisfied. And does not the poor child himself, even in his unconscious sleep, draw his breath more lightly than he did before? All is well.

“Who do you say that young woman is?” says Dr. Morton to Mr. Bartlett, as he draws on his coat in the doorway after all is over. “Could we not tempt her over to the General Hospital?”

“No, I think not. I do not think we can spare her.”

The boy Horace is new-born that day; a New Year’s gift to his mother. So pass Huldah’s holidays.

II.

CHRISTMAS AGAIN.

Fourteen years make of the boy whose pony has been too much for him a man equal to any prank of any pony. Fourteen years will do this, even to boys of ten. Horace Bartlett is the colonel of a cavalry regiment, stationed just now in West Virginia; and, as it happens, this twenty-four-year-old boy has an older commission than anybody in that region, and is the Post Commander at Talbot C. H., and will be, most likely, for the winter. The boy has a vein of foresight in him; a good deal of system; and, what is worth while to have by the side of system, some knack of order. So soon as he finds that he is responsible, he begins to prepare for responsibility. His staff-officers are boys too; but they are all friends, and all mean to do their best. His Surgeon-in-Charge took his degree at Washington last spring; that is encouraging. Perhaps, if he has not much experience, he has, at least, the latest advices. His head is level too; he means to do his best, such as it is; and, indeed, all hands in that knot of boy counsellors will not fail for laziness or carelessness. Their very youth makes them provident and grave.