The Junior Classics, Volume 6: Old-Fashioned Tales
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The Junior Classics, Volume 6: Old-Fashioned Tales
Children's literature
"Do you expect your patients to come to you, Nelly?" he asked.
"No, I shall go and look for them. I often see poor things suffering
in the garden, and the wood, and always feel as if they ought to be
taken care of, as people are."
"You won't like to carry insane bugs, lame toads, and convulsive
kittens in your hands, and they would not stay on a stretcher if you
had one. You should have an ambulance and be a branch of the Sanitary
Commission," said Will.
Nelly had often heard the words, but did not quite understand what
they meant. So Will told her of that great never-failing charity, to
which thousands owe their lives; and the child listened with lips
apart, eyes often full, and so much love and admiration in her heart
that she could find no words in which to tell it. When her brother
paused, she said earnestly: "Yes, I will be a Sanitary. This little
cart of mine shall be my amb'lance, and I'll never let my
water-barrels go empty, never drive too fast, or be rough with my poor
passengers, like some of the men you tell about. Does this look like
an amb'lance, Will?"
"Not a bit, but it shall, if you and mamma like to help me. I want
four long bits of cane, a square of white cloth, some pieces of thin
wood, and the gum-pot," said Will, sitting up to examine the little
cart, feeling like a boy again as he took out his knife and began to
whittle.
Upstairs and downstairs ran Nelly till all necessary materials were
collected, and almost breathlessly she watched her brother arch the
canes over the cart, cover them with the cloth, and fit an upper shelf
of small compartments, each lined with cotton-wool to serve as beds
for wounded insects, lest they should hurt one another or jostle out.
The lower part was left free for any larger creatures which Nelly
might find. Among her toys she had a tiny cask which only needed a peg
to be water-tight; this was filled and fitted in before, because, as
the small sufferers needed no seats, there was no place for it behind,
and, as Nelly was both horse and driver, it was more convenient in
front.
On each side of it stood a box of stores. In one were minute rollers,
as bandages are called, a few bottles not yet filled, and a wee doll's
jar of cold-cream, because Nelly could not feel that her outfit was
complete without a medicine-chest. The other box was full of crumbs,
bits of sugar, bird-seed, and grains of wheat and corn, lest any
famished stranger should die for want of food before she got it home.
Then mamma painted "U. S. San. Com." in bright letters on the cover,
and Nelly received her charitable plaything with a long sigh of
satisfaction.
"Nine o'clock already. Bless me, what a short evening this has been,"
exclaimed Will, as Nelly came to give him her good-night kiss.
"And such a happy one," she answered. "Thank you very, very much,
dear Will. I only wish my little amb'lance was big enough for you to
go in,--I'd so like to give you the first ride."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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