But there were yet three weary days of waiting ere the final forms were gone through with, the regiment paid off, the Board of Trade having assumed the payment, so as to permit the men to return home more speedily, and to Ralph they were the longest and most tedious he ever remembered. But at last his face was turned homeward, and as he sprang from the car, and hurried along the one short mile that divided the dear mother from him, his sunburned and speaking face, the erect form and swinging, elastic step, bore no resemblance to the boy who had come home to die, two years before. His mother and sisters stood in the doorway, and as they threw their arms around him, and pressed him to their hearts, he knew at last the sweet and tender bliss those two simple words conveyed--“Home again!” And when, in the years that followed, the simple army boy rose to position and fame in the field he chose for a life-calling, his dearest memories were of the toil and pain and sacrifice of the days he spent in the army. His proudest boast was that, humble as were his services, obscure as he was, he gave all he had, youth, energy, enthusiasm and endurance, to the cause of universal freedom, and dearly as he loved his mother and home, he still more dearly loved the land of his birth. THE SANITARY COMMISSION. I want to tell the boys and girls who have followed Ralph's simple story to the end of the war, about a grand body of men and women who worked valiantly for the soldiers while they were fighting in the field. Indeed, it would be unjust to the wives, mothers {248}and sisters of the boys of the days of the war, did I not say something about this noble enterprise. It has been said that women cannot fight, but even that assertion is not strictly true, for the records of history have furnished many cases of women going to the front with their husbands, disguised as men. But though they did not help swell the quota of soldiers, they did noble deeds--they cheered and comforted the boys in the field, and took tender care of them when sick or hungry. And one of the most powerful outgrowths of this humane and womanly sympathy was the Sanitary Commission. When the war broke out, in 1861, the women of the North met at once in many places to confer with each other as to the best means for taking proper care of the sick and wounded. They commenced to form societies, and chief among their objects was the wise one of bringing the sick home wherever it was possible, purchasing warm clothes, provisions and little additions to their comfort which the Government could not supply, the sending of books and papers to the camps, and keeping informed as to the condition and needs of the soldiers, by corresponding with officers of regiments, thus learning all they could about individuals.