We can pay her a better tribute than that. Let us
decide to speak in her absence as if she were present. That's about
all we can do in return for her kindness. She won't know the cost to
us in breaking habits, but we will, and that's better. We all feel
that we'd like to spill some more of our blood for the girl who fed
Phillips yonder as if he were a baby. Well, let us do the only thing
we can--speak as if our mothers heard us all the time, for this
girl's sake."
"I be blanked if I don't agree, and may the devil fly away with the
man who doesn't," cried Yarry.
"Ah, Yarry," said the captain, laughing, "you'll have the hardest
row of any of us to hoe. We'll have to let you off for some slips."
Then began among the majority a harder fight than that for life--a
fight with inveterate habit, an effort to change vernacular, almost
as difficult as the learning of a new language. For some time Miss
Lou did not know nor understand. Word had been passed to other and
smaller groups of the Union wounded in other buildings.
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