Mr.Larkin and Joe Tatum went on crutches; and I saw a man at the post-office one day whose cheek and ear had been torn away by a shell.

Even when Sam and I sat on the river-bank fishing, and ought to have been silent lest the fish swim away, we told over in low tones the stories that we had heard of wounds and of deaths and of battles.
"But there was the cheerful gentleness of my mother to draw my thoughts to different things.

I can even now recall many special little plans that she made to keep my mind from battles.

She hid the military cap that I had worn.

She bought from me my military buttons and put them away.