by Helen Wells
Dr. Joe gently wriggled out of Midge’s grasp and carefully held the test tube high. “Oh, I’ll find myself a sandwich later,” he murmured absently. Cherry shook her head warningly at Midge, knowing perfectly well that he would not.
But Dr. Joe was thinking aloud. “You see, Cherry, the important thing is this.” Midge shifted from one foot to the other but Cherry listened closely. “It can be used as a very special and marvelous anaesthetic. Remember I described cases, difficult operations, where the patient must remain conscious in order to cooperate with the doctor? Well, this drug will anaesthetize—deaden, that is—only the portion to be operated on. And it can be used to relieve pain so that a patient gets normal sleep. Far better than morphine. It’s a marvelous thing.”
Cherry said slowly, “Then—then especially in war, in the hospitals right behind the lines, even on the battlefields, your discovery would be——”
A sudden din, compounded of Mrs. Ames’s treble and Charlie’s male hoarseness and insistent pressure on the automobile horn, sent Cherry leaping off the laboratory stool.
Dr. Joe had not even heard it. He was pursuing Cherry’s thought. “War … We are fighting another war, we in medicine—the long, slow war on needless suffering and needless death. And when a new drug like this comes along, it could be a victory, if it were accepted.”
Midge tugged at his arm. “That train’s in a hurry and so is Cherry!”
Cherry laughed and hugged Midge. To Dr. Joe she said gaily, “I feel like I’m off to the wars myself!”
Dr. Fortune followed her through the living room. “A nurse is a soldier,” he said. He looked frail and lonely in the doorway as Cherry waved to him from the car.
Cherry’s father was already waiting for them on the platform. As they piled out of the car, Cherry thought affectionately that she would recognize his tall businesslike figure on any railroad station platform in the world. He came up to them with a proud smile for Cherry.
“Thought you were so busy with your real estate you wouldn’t have time for me!” she teased him.
“On the contrary. I’m grateful that a big career woman has time for me.” Mr. Ames laughed and said hello to all of them. And from the way they all—her competent father, her mother, her keen-eyed brother, right down to excited Midge—beamed and beamed at her, Cherry knew they believed in her and the work she was going to do. It gave her a good, warm feeling to know that.
The conductor was already shouting “All aboard!” from the train steps. Cherry barely had time to hug everybody all around and her mother once again. “Good luck!” they cried after her. “Be sure to write!” To her surprise there was a lump in her throat and things looked strangely blurred. Charlie heaved her bags aboard and clung to the bottom step.
“Jump off, you idiot, or you’ll be hurt!” Cherry shrieked as the train started.
“Forgot to—give you—this!” Charlie shouted back over a blast of the whistle. He wormed a flat box out of his pocket, shoved it into her outstretched hand and cried, “Don’t kill ’em off!” Then he was gone.
Cherry realized she was strictly on her own now. She clutched the box warmly and a little desperately as she made her way to the dusty green velvet seat where the conductor had stowed her luggage.
Cherry waited until the town disappeared, and only when the train hurtled past Johnson’s stately red barn, did she open Charlie’s gift. Her eyes widened as she lifted the lid of the box. A nurse’s watch! But a beauty—with a second hand for taking pulse and respiration and a professional-looking leather strap. For a moment she felt guilty, until she remembered these watches were not expensive after all. She fastened it on her wrist and felt practically a junior Florence Nightingale already. Charlie teased the daylights out of her twelve months a year but a brother was a pretty nice thing to have, after all.
The train flew forward, carrying her right smack into her future. Cherry snuggled into the seat and remembered all the steps that had led her to this big moment. She certainly had investigated thoroughly before she had decided on the Spencer School. She had written to the Nursing Information Bureau in New York and then to the State Board of Nurse Examiners in her home state. “And it was worth all the trouble, too,” she thought soberly. “I don’t want to go into a second-rate school and come out a second-rate nurse. A girl can’t be too careful.”
She thought happily of Spencer School. The catalogue—she knew it by heart—checked with the requirements of a really good nursing school. Spencer had everything: recognized staff doctors, a sufficient number of staff R.N.’s, complete laboratories and hospital equipment and libraries, and a course of training that did not leave out any branch of nursing. “My school,” Cherry thought proudly. Then she giggled to herself. “My school—and I’m not even in it. And unless I can meet its standards, I may be very much out of it!”
She frowned, feeling delighted and scared all at once. It was up to her, from here on. Dr. Joe had inspired her to become a nurse but between inspiration and accomplishment, she faced a great deal of work. It would not be easy. But she decided not to think of such troubling things. At least, not yet.
Instead, Cherry imagined before her the great hospital with its many buildings and green lawns. She seemed to smell the sweet heavy odor of ether, and hear the clanging ambulance bell. She could almost see the brisk white figures hurrying along the wards. And she tried to imagine herself one of that army in white.
CHAPTER II
New Faces
“WELL, I’VE GOTTEN AS FAR AS THIS, ANYHOW!”
Cherry stood blinking in the hospital’s vast shadowy rotunda. She had been daydreaming so busily that she had almost missed her station. It was the friendly conductor who had saved her from landing in the next town. Then she had promptly lost her way in the roaring city streets. This time a taxi driver saved her. The cab had whirled through streets of tall buildings, with Cherry practically hanging out the window. Then suddenly a great cluster of white buildings rose into view, on the top of a hill. It was the hospital, a city in itself, a modern fortress—and it came closer and closer. Cherry’s heart had skipped a beat when the cab actually entered the avenues of those interrelated white buildings and spacious green lawns, and finally stopped before Spencer Hall.
Cherry clutched her suitcase and gazed around the deserted rotunda.
Someone behind her coughed. A masculine voice said, “Can I direct you? You’re a new probationer, aren’t you?”
Cherry turned around to face a tall, pleasant young man in an interne’s white suit. He was even-featured, brown-haired and brown-eyed, and he owned the gayest smile she had ever seen.
“Why, yes, I am a probationer. My name is Cherry Ames. But how did you know?”
The young man laughed. “That probationer’s scared and awed look. I’m James Clayton,” he added. He went on sympathetically, “I don’t blame you for being impressed with the hospital. It’s a wonderful place and there’s wonderful work being done here.”
Cherry looked at the young doctor gratefully. “Where does a scared and awed probationer report?”
“I’ll show you where the Training School Office is,” Dr. Clayton said. “Don’t know why someone isn’t on hand at the information office at the moment. Just leave your suitcase; Willie will bring it over.”
Cherry followed his white-clad figure down the quiet corridor. He paused before an attractive office, with T.S.O. printed on the door, where three middle-aged nurses in starched white worked at their desks.
“And here I leave you to your fate,” young Dr. Clayton smiled. “See you on the wards.” His remark made Cherry feel awfully professional. Then he strode away.
“Well,” Cherry thought, “that’s as friendly an introduction to the hospital as anybody could ask.” Just the same, her knees threatened to melt under her at the sight of the office. She took a deep steadying breath and walked in.
The nurses looked up, and one of them came forward to greet Cherry.
“I’m Miss Kent, th
e Assistant Superintendent of Nurses. And you’re one of the new probationers, aren’t you?”
“I’m Cherry Ames,” Cherry gulped. She wondered if new probationers looked peculiar, since everyone could spot them instantly.
“Just a moment. I’ll look up your application,” Miss Kent said. She leafed through a thick bundle of papers while Cherry prayed nothing would go wrong at this last minute.
“Everything seems to be in order,” Miss Kent said. “Next week you will be called down to T.S.O. for a personal interview. Now I’ll take you over to Williams Hall. That’s the residence for first- and second-year nurses and probationers,” Miss Kent explained. Her smile was friendly and reassuring. “Ordinarily we’d go through the yard, but I’ve an errand to do on the way. So we’ll go the long way around.”
Cherry followed her, looking respectfully at her hard-won uniform and cap. Miss Kent whisked her through the turns and twists of antiseptic-smelling corridors. Except for a lone interne or a hurrying nurse, there wasn’t a soul in sight. As for patients, Cherry thought, apparently the hospital had none. The silence was positively eerie.
“You’ll soon learn to find your way through all this labyrinth,” Miss Kent said encouragingly. “It seems roundabout to you now, but once you’re nursing, you’ll find this layout is most convenient in the end.”
Cherry was sure she would never remember any of it. Her errand finished, Miss Kent pushed through a door and they walked rapidly across a landscaped lawn. Cherry saw tennis courts in the distance. She had to trot to keep up with the nurse’s brisk pace.
Miss Kent pointed out several wings of the hospital. “ENT—GYN—the various O.R.’s—” Cherry’s face changed at this strange new language. Miss Kent explained. “Ear, Nose and Throat—Gynecologic—Operating Rooms. You can’t see all the buildings from here. The hospital has about fifty-five wards in all, not counting the blood bank and the clinics.”
“Golly!” Cherry exclaimed before she realized it was the wrong answer. But Miss Kent only smiled. Cherry did not know where to look first. She looked chiefly at the assistant superintendent’s cap, which fascinated her. It was a dainty charlotte russe affair of fluted organdy, and above Miss Kent’s rather stern face and muscular figure, it looked strangely frivolous.
Cherry followed Miss Kent and her cap into a large attractive red brick building. Several girls in probationers’ gray, and other student nurses in striped blue and white, with crackling white aprons, thronged about the bulletin board and the sitting room on the main floor. Cherry noticed that the humble probationers had no bibs on their aprons and no caps on their heads. After being a mighty senior in high school, here she was a freshman again!
An elevator took them upstairs and after more silent corridors and more mysterious rooms, they paused before an open door.
“And now,” Miss Kent said, “this is your room, Miss Ames. Dinner at six. Not in uniform just yet. Probationers’ meeting after dinner in Spencer Lounge.” She smiled, and vanished on noiseless rubber heels.
Here she was at last!
Cherry started to look around her new room. But she turned as she heard the first sounds since she had entered this quiet place. Girls walked by her door, looking in shyly as if they wanted somebody to talk to. Across the corridor came the splashing of bath water. But first, Cherry decided, she wanted to get herself settled.
It was a darling room, small, but complete and attractive, and all hers. A maple day bed with a luxuriously good mattress, a chest of drawers with a mirror, and a desk, also in maple, were arranged against the pale green walls Couch cover and matching curtains were of gay chintz. Two chairs looked inviting, but Cherry suspected she would be too busy to spend much time in them. She went toward the window and stumbled over her suitcase in the center of the cozy little room.
It certainly did not seem like the same suitcase she had packed with Midge’s dubious assistance in her own room at home, long ago this morning. Nor did she feel like the same girl. But after Cherry had placed a few of her own things around—photographs of the family and her toilet articles on the dresser, a few of her favorite books on the table beside the day bed—she began to feel completely at home.
The voices in the hall sounded inviting, and Cherry longed to share her excitement with someone who was just as strange and bewildered as she. A few girls poked their heads in, and one freckled face called a friendly “Hello.” But Cherry decided she had better rescue her clothes from the suitcase first. Getting everything hung away in the closet or neatly arranged in the chest of drawers took a surprisingly long time. Cherry had not any too much time to bathe in one of the roomy bathrooms and wiggle back into her red suit and a fresh white blouse. By the time she had brushed her dark curls and tried to tone down her rosy cheeks with a little face powder, it was nearly six. Cherry opened her door. All the voices and footsteps had gone. She was all alone on this floor and perhaps in the whole building. She looked about in bewilderment for the right elevator or the right stairs.
“How can I ever find my way back through that wilderness of halls?” she muttered. “I’ll probably starve to death. They’ll find my body when they return, stuffed with dinner, the wretches.”
She walked toward the end of the corridor and boldly went into the first door that looked promising. She found herself in a huge linen closet, with sheets and blankets and towels stacked in neat V’s. Cherry backed out and headed for a glass door that might lead to stairs. It led down a short corridor and to another door. Without thinking to knock, Cherry walked in. A very drowsy nurse was just climbing out of bed.
“I—I beg your pardon,” Cherry gasped. “I thought you were the way out.”
The nurse shook her tousled hair out of her eyes and peered at Cherry. “I am on my way out. To night duty, via second dinner. You’re a probationer and you’re trying to find first dinner I suppose?”
Cherry nodded miserably. Probationers were peculiar-looking, it seemed. Despite her anxiety to get to the dining room on time, she was impressed with the thought of night duty.
“—down these stairs, through the lobby, across the lawn, and first door to your right in Spencer,” the nurse was saying. “Not even a probie can miss it. Anyway, you couldn’t stay lost long—a searching party could always locate those red cheeks.”
“Well, thank you very much,” Cherry said uncertainly and flew down the stairs.
“Don’t ever get lost in Surgical,” the unknown night nurse called after her. “Dr. Wylie won’t stand for any nonsense in his ward! And he practically eats student nurses alive!”
Cherry was not sure whether or not she was being teased. But she tucked the name, Dr. Wylie, under the W’s in her mind for future reference. She walked across the lawn, cool and dark now in the early dusk and found her way into Spencer. Troops of nurses were entering the dining room. Cherry entered with them, and stood a moment before the sea of uniforms and tables.
Standing beside Cherry was a poised girl with smooth light brown hair and dark blue eyes. She was about Cherry’s age, and she, too, was wearing a traveling suit, of navy blue.
“It’s so crowded, guess we’ll have to eat standing up, like the cows and the horses,” the girl observed. Her voice was quiet, with an undertone of humor. She had a familiar midwest accent, and Cherry smiled at that.
“I’m just as lost around here as you are,” Cherry said. “Let’s see if we can’t find two places together.”
They filled their trays at the tempting food counter and wandered about the big pleasant dining room, with its fresh green and peach color scheme. There were tables for four and tables for eight. A big table along the wall was crowded with agonizingly stiff probationers who had apparently drifted together out of their common timidity. But at all the other tables there was much talking and laughter, and there swept over Cherry, from this chattering room and these brisk nurses, a great surge of energy. All these young women in uniform were thoroughly alive, even those tired from just coming off duty. All of them were
eager and alert and purposeful, keyed high for action. Already Cherry felt she belonged. But Cherry and her new-found companion did not venture to sit down with the blue-and-white striped student nurses, much less with the white-clad nurses. Though later they learned that probationers were allowed to sit with student nurses, while the graduate nurses shared their tables with the seniors. They finally found a little table tucked in a corner.
Cherry introduced herself. “I’m from Hilton,” she added.
“That’s close to home!” the other girl said. She held out her hand and Cherry noticed that she too wore a brand-new nurses’s watch. “Ann Evans. From Indian City. We probably know loads of the same people.”
It turned out that Ann Evans knew Cherry’s brother. She had met him at a party.
“I remember dancing with Charles,” Ann said, as they ate. “I liked him a lot, except that he more or less ruined my feet. And he talked a lot about flying.”
Cherry laughed and nodded. “That’s my twin brother, all right! He wants to——”
“Your twin! But he’s so blonde!”
“Nobody believes it. We ought to go around with proof. But Dr. Joe can tell you—” She stopped suddenly. Somehow, she did not want to talk about Dr. Joe. Putting aside their empty soup cups and starting on their roast beef made a convenient little interruption. Cherry noticed appreciatively that they were having a good dinner.
Ann’s clear cool voice went on talking about her new room. They found that they were on different floors of the Nurses’ Residence, but Ann promised to come down and visit the next day. Cherry liked Ann Evans. By the time they came to dessert and coffee, they had really become acquainted. Cherry thought, however, that Ann was rather quiet and serious for a girl her age.
After dinner they looked in at the library with its warm lamps, deep leather sofas and chairs, and up-to-date books and magazines of all kinds.
“Just let me loose in there,” Ann said longingly.
“The Superintendent of Nurses comes first,” Cherry reminded her. “You know Miss Reamer can’t speak until we arrive!”