I NEVER expected to see Joe again; but, six months later, we did meet in a Washington hospital one winter’s night. A train of ambulances had left their sad freight at our door, and we were hurrying to get the poor fellows into much-needed beds, after a week of hunger, cold, and unavoidable neglect. All forms of pain were in my ward that night, and all borne with the pathetic patience which was a daily marvel to those who saw it. Trying to bring order out of chaos, I was rushing up and down the narrow aisle between the rows of rapidly filling beds, and, after brushing several times against a pair of the largest and muddiest boots I ever saw, I paused at last to inquire why they were impeding the passage-way. I found they belonged to a very tall man who seemed to be already asleep or dead, so white and still and utterly worn out he looked as he lay there, without a coat, a great patch on his forehead, and the right arm rudely bundled up. Stooping to cover him, I saw that he was unconscious, and, whipping out my brandy-bottle and salts, soon brought him round, for it was only exhaustion. “Can you eat?” I asked, as he said, “Thanky, ma’am,” after a long draught of water and a dizzy stare. “Eat! I’m starvin’!” he answered, with such a ravenous glance at a fat nurse who happened to be passing, that I trembled for her, and hastened to take a bowl of soup from her tray. As I fed him, his gaunt, weather-beaten face had a familiar look; but so many such faces had passed before me that winter, I did not recall this one till the ward-master came to put up the cards with the new-comers’ names above their beds. My man seemed absorbed in his food; but I naturally glanced at the card, and there was the name “Joseph Collins” to give me an additional interest in my new patient. “Why, Joe! is it really you?” I exclaimed, pouring the last spoonful of soup down his throat so hastily that I choked him. “All that’s left of me. Wal, ain’t this luck, now?” gasped Joe, as gratefully as if that hospital-cot was a bed of roses. “What is the matter? A wound in the head and arm?” I asked, feeling sure that no slight affliction had brought Joe there. “Right arm gone. Shot off as slick as a whistle. I tell you, it’s a sing’lar kind of a feelin’ to see a piece of your own body go flyin’ away, with no prospect of ever coming back again,” said Joe, trying to make light of one of the greatest misfortunes a man can suffer. “That is bad, but it might have been worse. Keep up your spirits, Joe; and we will soon have you fitted out with a new arm almost as good as new.” “I guess it won’t do much lumberin’, so that trade is done for. I s’pose there’s things left-handed fellers can do, and I must learn ’em as soon as possible, since my fightin’ days are over,” and Joe looked at his one arm with a sigh that was almost a groan, helplessness is such a trial to a manly man,—and he was eminently so.