Page:Nurse and spy in the Union Army.djvu/85

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CAMP MISERIES, AND MULES.
75


tasted food for more than two days. Then blankets were provided, and they soon became comfortable, and as happy as human beings could be under such circumstances. Mrs. B. and I returned to our tents feeling very much like indorsing the sentiment of "Will Jones' resolve:"

Resolved, although my brother be a slave,
And poor and black, he is my brother still;
Can I, o'er trampled "institutions," save
That brother from the chain and lash, I will.

A cold, drizzling rain continued to descend for several days, and our camp became a fair specimen of "Virginia mud." I began to feel the effects of the miasma which came floating on every breeze from the adjacent swamps and marshes, and fever and ague became my daily companions for a time. As I sat in my tent, roasting or shivering as the case might be, I took a strange pleasure in watching the long trains of six mule teams which were constantly passing and repassing within a few rods of my tent. As "Miss Periwinkle" remarks, there are several classes of mules. "The coquettish mule has small feet, a nicely trimmed tail, perked up ears, and seems much given to little tosses of the head, affected skips and prances, and, if he wears bells or streamers, puts on as many airs as any belle. The moral mule is a stout, hardworking creature, always tugging with all his might, often pulling away after the rest have stopped, laboring under the conscientious delusion that food