Trooper Tales — page 197: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Aberration of Private Brown. 183 when the corporal was on guard. Violence seemed to weary Brown on the transport, and he did not persist in it, except when it was absolutely indispensable. At such times the loopholes of the smoking-room would be crowded with interested faces. : While the big transport was being shoved and locked in pier 22, New York harbor, Kennedy was the busiest man on the ship. A good soldier was Kennedy, and before meeting his superiors at the army building he shaved and donned his finest. I was told to keep Brown under heavy guard until he returned. The corporal said he would send a telegram to the patient’s mother. Passing over the manner in which the patient’s dis- charge was obtained, only one more scene is necessary. Brown braced himself for a last delirium. The corporal must have no suspicion, at least while he was in the States. “Allow me to wholly manage the matter,” Kennedy whispered to me, as the train rolled into Brown’s native burg. Our patient appeared placid. By the expression upon his countenance one would imagine that he held both of his keepers in serene disdain. And a moment afterward Brown was in the arms of a weeping mother. He talked irrelevantly; he smiled a debilitated smile—he was the Brown of illusions—because Corp. Kennedy was there. It was the bravest effort of his life. And a tall maiden with eyes dark and handsome, yet, oh, so sad—was also there! Brown appeared not to see her. Cconniclooolks.eo