“Yes.”
“You told me the street, but I’ve forgotten it.”
Sidney repeated the name of the Street, and slipped a fresh pillow under the girl’s head.
“The evening paper says there’s a girl going to be married on your street.”
“Really! Oh, I think I know. A friend of mine is going to be married. Was the name Lorenz?”
“The girl’s name was Lorenz. I—I don’t remember the man’s name.”
“She is going to marry a Mr. Howe,” said Sidney briskly. “Now, how do you feel? More comfy?”
“Fine! I suppose you’ll be going to that wedding?”
“If I ever get time to have a dress made, I’ll surely go.”
Toward six o’clock the next morning, the night nurse was making out her reports. On one record, which said at the top, “Grace Irving, age 19,” and an address which, to the initiated, told all her story, the night nurse wrote:—
“Did not sleep at all during night. Face set and eyes staring, but complains of no pain. Refused milk at eleven and three.”
Carlotta Harrison, back from her vacation, reported for duty the next morning, and was assigned to E ward, which was Sidney’s. She gave Sidney a curt little nod, and proceeded to change the entire routine with the thoroughness of a Central American revolutionary president. Sidney, who had yet to learn that with some people authority can only assert itself by change, found herself confused, at sea, half resentful.
Once she ventured a protest:—
“I’ve been taught to do it that way, Miss Harrison. If my method is wrong, show me what you want, and I’ll do my best.”
“I am not responsible for what you have been taught. And you will not speak back when you are spoken to.”
Small as the incident was, it marked a change in Sidney’s position in the ward. She got the worst off-duty of the day, or none. Small humiliations were hers: late meals, disagreeable duties, endless and often unnecessary tasks. Even Miss Grange, now reduced to second place, remonstrated with her senior.
“I think a certain amount of severity is good for a probationer,” she said, “but you are brutal, Miss Harrison.”
“She’s stupid.”
“She’s not at all stupid. She’s going to be one of the best nurses in the house.”
“Report me, then. Tell the Head I’m abusing Dr. Wilson’s pet probationer, that I don’t always say ‘please’ when I ask her to change a bed or take a temperature.”
Miss Grange was not lacking in keenness. She died not go to the Head, which is unethical under any circumstances; but gradually there spread through the training-school a story that Carlotta Harrison was jealous of the new Page girl, Dr. Wilson’s protegee. Things were still highly unpleasant in the ward, but they grew much better when Sidney was off duty. She was asked to join a small class that was studying French at night. As ignorant of the cause of her popularity as of the reason of her persecution, she went steadily on her way.
And she was gaining every day. Her mind was forming. She was learning to think for herself. For the first time, she was facing problems and demanding an answer. Why must there be Grace Irvings in the world? Why must the healthy babies of the obstetric ward go out to the slums and come back, in months or years, crippled for the great fight by the handicap of their environment, rickety, tuberculous, twisted? Why need the huge mills feed the hospitals daily with injured men?
And there were other things that she thought of. Every night, on her knees in the nurses’ parlor at prayers, she promised, if she were accepted as a nurse, to try never to become calloused, never to regard her patients as “cases,” never to allow the cleanliness and routine of her ward to delay a cup of water to the thirsty, or her arms to a sick child.
On the whole, the world was good, she found. And, of all the good things in it, the best was service. True, there were hot days and restless nights, weary feet, and now and then a heartache. There was Miss Harrison, too. But to offset these there was the sound of Dr. Max’s step in the corridor, and his smiling nod from the door; there was a “God bless you” now and then for the comfort she gave; there were wonderful nights on the roof under the stars, until K.‘s little watch warned her to bed.
While Sidney watched the stars from her hospital roof, while all around her the slum children, on other roofs, fought for the very breath of life, others who knew and loved her watched the stars, too. K. was having his own troubles in those days. Late at night, when Anna and Harriet had retired, he sat on the balcony and thought of many things. Anna Page was not well. He had noticed that her lips were rather blue, and had called in Dr. Ed. It was valvular heart disease. Anna was not to be told, or Sidney. It was Harriet’s ruling.
“Sidney can’t help any,” said Harriet, “and for Heaven’s sake let her have her chance. Anna may live for years. You know her as well as I do. If you tell her anything at all, she’ll have Sidney here, waiting on her hand and foot.”
And Le Moyne, fearful of urging too much because his own heart was crying out to have the girl back, assented.
Then, K. was anxious about Joe. The boy did not seem to get over the thing the way he should. Now and then Le Moyne, resuming his old habit of wearying himself into sleep, would walk out into the country. On one such night he had overtaken Joe, tramping along with his head down.
Joe had not wanted his company, had plainly sulked. But Le Moyne had persisted.
“I’ll not talk,” he said; “but, since we’re going the same way, we might as well walk together.”
But after a time Joe had talked, after all. It was not much at first—a feverish complaint about the heat, and that if there was trouble in Mexico he thought he’d go.
