Mr. Crooks had been my Sunday school teacher at home, and the morning he and some of the other “boys” left for the war, I heard my teacher in the public school offer up prayer in behalf of the “brave boys who had gone forth to defend their country’s honor.” As her words fell upon my ears I little dreamed that in a few short months I would follow, and meet with these same “boys.” After we had been in the hospital some little time my mother invited Mr. Crooks to dinner, and Oh, what a dinner that was! at least Mr. Crooks said it was the first white man’s meal he had eaten since he left home. My mother cooked a portion of it by the fireplace, Mother Bickerdyke made a generous contribution, and the cook of the officers’ mess donated a very fine pudding. The butter—but the less said about it the better—at least in regard to its age and strength. It was of the canned variety, but Mr. Crooks thought it better than no butter at all, and promising to come again another day, jovially walked off with a can of it under his arm. He kept his word and visited us a number of times at the college hospital. Years after the war was over he told us that the mere mention of our father’s name called up visions of an old gray army blanket given him by our father as they were parting on one occasion, when but for it his bed would have been the cold, bare earth, his covering the canopy of heaven. OUR QUAKER FRIENDS. MY ILLNESS. SUPPER IN THE MESS ROOM JUST as my father recovered sufficiently to walk about a little, he was seized with a violent attack of inflammatory rheumatism, and lay helpless for several weeks. During this time we had four men nurses who assisted my mother in caring for him. They were ward-master Gilmore, Cole, the artilleryman before spoken of, Thomas Terrie, a Scotchman, and Thomas Enslow, from one of the New England States. The latter two were my devoted friends, and gave me little trinkets and keepsakes.