I was setting down to write that letter and was about midway through, having got to “the pride of the battery and regretted by all who noo him,” when I looked up, and what in thunder do you suppose I saw?  The old lady herself, by God! walking into camp with an umberella and a valise, and looking like she always did—­ powerful grim and commanding.  Someone must have told her the news and which was my tent, for she walked straight up to where I was and said:  “William, William!” like that.  She didn’t cry or nothing, and anybody at a distance might have thought she was just talking to a stranger; but there was a whole funeral march in the sound of her voice, and you could read Benny’s death like print in her wrinkled old face.  I took her out to where we had buried him, and she plumped down on her knees and prayed, with the umberella and the valise beside her, while I held my hat in one hand and my pistol in the other, ready for any bolo business that might come out of the high grass.

Then we went back to the field-hospital and had a look in, she explaining on the way how she had mortgaged her home, so as to come and look after Benny.  I guess the hospital must have appeared kind of cheerless, for lots of the wounded were lying on the bare ground, and it was a caution the way some of them groaned and groaned.  You see Battery K had just come in, having had an engagement by the way at Dagupan, and Wilson’s cavalry, besides, had dumped a sight of their men on us.

“And it was in a place like this that my boy died?” said the old lady, her mouth quivering and then closing on the words like a steel trap.

“There’s the very cot, Ma’am,” I said.

She said something like “Oh, oh, oh!” under her breath, and, taking out her handkerchief, wiped the face and lips of the man in the cot, who was lying there with his uniform still on him.  I suppose he had got it because he was a bad case,—­the cot, I mean,—­and certainly he was far from spry.

“He’s dead!” said the old lady, shuddering.  “He’s dead!”

“Orderly,” I said, “number fifty-six is dead!”

The orderly bent over to make sure and then ran for his slate—­the same old slate—­and began to write down the same old thing.  I suppose there was some sense to that slate racket, for with a little spit one slate would do for a brigade, but it seemed a cheap way to die.  Then, as we stood there, another orderly came gallumphing in with something steaming in a tin can.  The old lady took it out of his hand and smelled it, supercilious.

“What do you call this?” she said.

“It’s chicken broth, Ma’am,” he said.  “That’s what it is, Ma’am.”

“Faugh!” said the old lady, “faugh!” and handed it back to him, like she was going to throw it away, but didn’t.  Then we watched him dip it out in tin cups and carry it around, while some other fellers came in and carried out the body of the man in the cot, a trooper by his legs.  We went out with them, and, I tell you, it was good to stand in the open air again and breathe.  The old lady took a little spell of rest on a packing-case; then she gave me her umberella and valise to take back to quarters, and, rolling up her sleeves, made like she was going into the hospital again.