So our invalids began to mend on the fourth day, and to drive their nurses distracted with efforts to amuse them, before the first week was over.
The most successful attempt originated in Ward No.

1, as Mrs.Minot called Jack's apartment, and we will give our sympathizing readers some idea of this place, which became the stage whereon were enacted many varied and remarkable scenes.
Each of the Minot boys had his own room, and there collected his own treasures and trophies, arranged to suit his convenience and taste.
Frank's was full of books, maps, machinery, chemical messes, and geometrical drawings, which adorned the walls like intricate cobwebs.
A big chair, where he read and studied with his heels higher than his head, a basket of apples for refreshment at all hours of the day or night, and an immense inkstand, in which several pens were always apparently bathing their feet, were the principal ornaments of his scholastic retreat.
Jack's hobby was athletic sports, for he was bent on having a strong and active body for his happy little soul to live and enjoy itself in.

So a severe simplicity reigned in his apartment; in summer, especially, for then his floor was bare, his windows were uncurtained, and the chairs uncushioned, the bed being as narrow and hard as Napoleon's.

The only ornaments were dumbbells, whips, bats, rods, skates, boxing-gloves, a big bath-pan and a small library, consisting chiefly of books on games, horses, health, hunting, and travels.

In winter his mother made things more comfortable by introducing rugs, curtains, and a fire.