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. The pledge
was soon known as "A Northern Tribute to a Southern Girl." It was
entered into with enthusiasm and kept with a pathetic effort which
many will not understand. Yarry positively began to fail under the
restraint he imposed upon himself. His wound caused him agony, and
profanity would have been his natural expression of even slight
annoyance. All day long grisly oaths rose to his lips. Now and then
an excruciating twinge would cause a half-uttered expletive to burst
forth like a projectile. A deep groan would follow, as the man
became rigid in his struggle for self-control.

"Yarry," cried Captain Hanfield, who had suggested the pledge, "let
yourself go, for God's sake. You have shown more heroism to-day than
I in all my life. We will make you an exception and put you on
parole to hold in only while Miss Baron is here."