Cherry Ames Boxed Set 1-4

by Helen Wells

  CHERRY AMES NURSE STORIES

  CHERRY AMES SENIOR NURSE

  By

  HELEN WELLS

  Copyright © 1944 by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc.

  Copyright © renewed 2006 by Harriet Schulman Forman

  Springer Publishing Company, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Springer Publishing Company, Inc.

  Springer Publishing Company, Inc.

  11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor

  New York, NY 10036-8002

  Production Editor: Print Matters, Inc.

  Cover design by Takeout Graphics, Inc.

  Composition: Compset, Inc.

  06 07 08 09 10/5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wells, Helen, 1910–

  Cherry Ames, senior nurse / by Helen Wells.

  p. cm. — (Cherry Ames nurse stories)

  Summary: During their final year of training, Cherry Ames and her friends at Spencer Hospital face difficult decisions about their futures as nurses during wartime.

  ISBN 0-97715-971-X (pbk.)

  [1. Nurses—Fiction. 2. Hospitals—Fiction. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.W4644Cq 2005

  [Fic]—dc22

  2005051738

  Printed in the United States of America by Bang Printing

  Contents

  FOREWORD

  I

  SENIOR YEAR

  II

  DREAMS AND PLANS

  III

  TWO STRANGE PEOPLE

  IV

  VERY SMALL FRY

  V

  MIDGE MAKES MISCHIEF

  VI

  AN ORCHID OR GARDENIAS

  VII

  DOUBLE TROUBLE

  VIII

  BLACK LACE

  IX

  OPERATING ROOM

  X

  MOM TALKS

  XI

  THREE LETTERS

  XII

  MADAME ZAZA

  XIII

  LEX IS PROVEN

  XIV

  DAY OF GLORY

  XV

  CHERRY DECIDES

  Foreword

  Helen Wells, the author of the Cherry Ames stories, said, “I’ve always thought of nursing, and perhaps you have, too, as just about the most exciting, important, and rewarding, profession there is. Can you think of any other skill that is always needed by everybody, everywhere?”

  I was and still am a fan of Cherry Ames. Her courageous dedication to her patients; her exciting escapades; her thirst for knowledge; her intelligent application of her nursing skills; and the respect she achieved as a registered nurse (RN) all made it clear to me that I was going to follow in her footsteps and become a nurse—nothing else would do. Thousands of other young people were motivated by Cherry Ames to become RNs as well. Cherry Ames motivated young people on into the 1970s, when the series ended. Readers who remember reading these books in the past will enjoy rereading them now—whether or not they chose nursing as a career—and perhaps sharing them with others.

  My career has been a rich and satisfying one, during which I have delivered babies, saved lives, and cared for people in hospitals and in their homes. I have worked at the bedside and served as an administrator. I have published journals, written articles, taught students, consulted, and given expert testimony. Never once did I regret my decision to enter nursing.

  During the time that I was publishing a nursing journal, I became acquainted with Robert Wells, brother of Helen Wells. In the course of conversation I learned that Ms. Wells had passed on and left the Cherry Ames copyright to Mr. Wells. Because there is a shortage of nurses here in the US today, I thought, “Why not bring Cherry back to motivate a whole new generation of young people? Why not ask Mr. Wells for the copyright to Cherry Ames?” Mr. Wells agreed, and the republished series is dedicated both to Helen Wells, the original author, and to her brother Robert Wells who transferred the rights to me. I am proud to ensure the continuation of Cherry Ames into the twenty-first century.

  The final dedication is to you, both new and old readers of Cherry Ames: It is my dream that you enjoy Cherry’s nursing skills as well as her escapades. I hope that young readers will feel motivated to choose nursing as your life’s work. Remember, as Helen Wells herself said: there’s no other skill that’s “always needed by everybody, everywhere.”

  Harriet Schulman Forman, RN, Ed.D.

  Series Editor

  CHAPTER I

  Senior Year

  THE RISING BELL CLANGED. CHERRY CAREFULLY wrapped the covers around her ears, turned over and went back to sleep.

  When she awoke again, her eyes fell on the clock and she leaped wildly out of bed. She had overslept a whole half-hour! It was really late! Half-asleep, she dashed automatically for the maple chest of drawers and collided with a chair instead. Then Cherry remembered. Of course—this wasn’t her old room—this was her new room in Crowley, the residence for seniors and graduate nurses! Starting this morning she was a senior—and she was late! Cherry scrambled into her clothes as the clock ticked loudly and warningly. She ran to the closet and pulled out a crisp blue and white striped uniform, with black chevrons on the shoulder. Late or not, Cherry stopped for breath and a moment’s gloating over those senior chevrons.

  Then she dashed over to the mirror and slammed her nurse’s cap on her head. A breathless girl of twenty looked back at her—a slim, lovely girl with black eyes and black curls, and cheeks and lips so red they had earned her her name. She struggled to get her apron tied, but the bow balked. Outside in the corridor, instead of the usual bedlam of nurses, there was a profound silence—they all had left for breakfast long ago! “It’s still me,” Cherry marveled at her reflection. “Cherry Ames, from Hilton, Illinois, a senior and not changed a bit! Still tardy!”

  She swept up her bandage scissors from where they lay on her radio. That radio was a proud sign of her brand-new estate, for Spencer Nursing School allowed only seniors and graduate nurses to have radios. The clock ticked louder than ever. Cherry raced out of her room, dashed down the stairs and burst out of Crowley’s front door. Far away, Cherry made out white figures leaving the dining room, not entering it. “Late, late, always late!” she mourned. “And I’m starving!”

  But the nurses’ dining room in Spencer Hall, at the far end of the yard, was a good ten minutes’ walk away, she figured hungrily. And Cherry’s new assignment—her first ward duty as a senior!—was way down at the other end of the yard. Her friend Ann Evans, who was assigned there too, probably already was on the ward. “Q.E.D. no breakfast,” Cherry thought, and started off at a sprint.

  It was a sunny, bright blue morning, already hot at seven o’clock. Cherry hurried down the flagstone path past the many white hospital buildings, calling good morning to brisk passing nurses and internes. This was her world, she had earned a place in it, and she loved it. That is, it was her world provided she could survive her senior year. Cherry knew that this morning she was embarking on the hardest of all her three years nurses training, and was facing the severest tests so far. She tried to think some serious thoughts about it. But all she could think of was the gnawing in her stomach. She told herself sternly, as she rounded the corner to the Pediatrics Clinic, that the gnawing came from hunger and not from nervousness. She was not scared about a new and very difficult type of ward duty—Children’s Ward—certainly not!

  Cherry ran up the steps of the Children’s Clinic with her full blue and white skirt swirling around her, her crisp white apron crackling, and one hand anchoring her pert white cap. Puffing, she got into the ground floor just in time to see the elevator disappear upwards.

  The dispensary with its rows of benches, its desks and filing cabinets, its cubicles of examination rooms, was deserted. Within two
hours, it would be overflowing and noisy with clinic patients. Small boys and girls who had managed to get themselves banged up, battered, scratched, out of joint, or were on their way to being sick, would be treated here and sent home, with instructions and medication, and perhaps with orders to come back. Next door in the Babies’ Clinic, there would be expectant mothers, wisely being checked up periodically, and eagerly attending the Prenatal class in how to make hygienic preparations at home for the babies who were on their way.

  “That’s a class I’d like to teach,” Cherry thought ambitiously, “either here in a clinic, or as a visiting nurse going right straight into people’s homes. That would be fun.”

  But her new Children’s Ward should be fun, she thought, if she ever got there. Where was that elevator? She looked anxiously up the shaft.

  Finally the car slid down, and Cherry squeezed in. Most of the car was taken up by a large steam wagon full of breakfast for the patients. Cherry’s mouth watered. The wagon was in charge of a small stooped woman wearing a maid’s black dress and white apron. Her old eyes, in their network of wrinkles, were bright and friendly as a robin’s. The elevator operator disappeared for the morning newspapers.

  “Top of the morning to you, Miss Ames,” the little maid sang out. “Sure, and I know you! Doesn’t the whole of Spencer Hospital know the girl who’s always so full of fun and——”

  “What’s your name?” Cherry interrupted hastily.

  The little maid beamed at her. “I’m Lucy from the Children’s Ward. You may have heard of me, for Lucy is the children’s friend. And it will be a great happiness to have you on my ward.” As Cherry’s eyes widened, she added, “There’s not much going on on her own ward that Lucy does not know!” She lowered her voice mysteriously. “I’ll bet you’ll never guess what I’ve got in this-here old wagon for the children. Besides breakfast, I mean to say. Ah, come on now, guess!”

  Cherry guessed, for she had heard of the unlikely things Lucy lugged around in that steam wagon, despite hospital regulations. “A geranium? A picture book? A—let’s see—some new crayons?”

  “I have got one straggly geranium. But look at this!” Lucy raised the lid of an unheated compartment and lifted out a wriggling white rabbit. “Wait till the young ones see that!” The elevator man was returning, so she hastily stuffed the bunny back in the wagon.

  As the elevator rose leisurely, Cherry choked with laughter. “It’s a lovely idea, Lucy, but what will the head nurse say?” She knew she should say more. She should, especially as a senior nurse, either forbid Lucy to take the rabbit on the ward or warn the head nurse. Cherry could not do it. She knew she was not even going to tell her side-kick Ann Evans about it, for Ann was conscientious enough to shoo Lucy and her rabbit away. “I’m a senior now, I mustn’t indulge in monkey business,” Cherry thought. But visions of the rabbit leading the doctors and nurses a merry chase convulsed her as she entered the new ward.

  At the threshold Cherry caught her breath and stopped to smile. This ward was certainly different from the usual long, plain, white room! She had seen Children’s Ward before, but she had forgotten how gay it was. It was a square room, with a great many sunny windows barred at the bottom, and its walls were tinted a cheerful pale yellow, with Mother Goose figures chasing one another merrily around the room. All the furniture was small-scale, including the white iron beds, cribs, and the two tables and the chairs at one end of the ward. The tables were set, now, with tiny pink and blue dishes and silverware and—obviously the pride of the children—tiny milk pitchers which they could pour themselves. Cherry loved it.

  She went over to the head nurse’s desk to introduce herself and to report on duty. The gray-haired head nurse, Mrs. Crofts, looked up pleasantly. “I’m glad to have you on my ward, Miss Ames,” she said. “I hope you will enjoy working with children. They offer some special problems.”

  “I like children,” Cherry said hopefully but uncertainly. “I’d like to learn about nursing them.”

  “Good,” Mrs. Crofts said. “This is Miss George, the nurse on our ward.” Cherry found a plump, comfortable, middle-aged woman smiling at her. “And this is the other student nurse, Miss Evans,” the head nurse said as Ann came down the row of beds.

  Cherry looked affectionately at Ann. She was a calm young woman with brown hair and steady dark blue eyes. Her quiet voice had Cherry’s own Middle West twang as she said with a straight face, “How do you do, Miss Ames.”

  Cherry grinned. “Miss Evans and I have already met.”

  Miss George showed Cherry and Ann where the ward’s serving kitchen, laboratory or utility room, and linen closet were located. Ann’s whisper put Cherry’s mind back on her work:

  “Miss George and Mrs. Crofts and Lucy too—they’re all so easy-going and gentle and affectionate and—and reassuring. A child would feel safe and loved with them.”

  Cherry nodded. She wondered if she herself had enough of those qualities and whether she could learn, in time, to handle a whole roomful of sick and emotionally upset children. She was to find out immediately, for the head nurse leading her down the row of small beds told her:

  “These six little boys and girls are to be your patients.”

  Mrs. Crofts described their ailments briefly, at the same time showing Cherry the charts which hung at each child’s bedside: a cardiac case, a gastric disorder, rheumatic fever, for this was a Medical Ward. There were no contagious diseases here, no surgical cases convalescing from operations, no broken bones or paralysis cases. Cherry knew that these would be, respectively, on Contagious, Surgical, and Orthopedic Wards. She smiled at the six solemn children who were to be her charges for the coming week. Her smile was a bit anxious.

  Ann, on the other side of the ward, was going through the same procedure with Miss George. Cherry met Ann in the kitchen a few minutes later, where they prepared breakfast trays with food from Lucy’s wagon. The usual dumbwaiter was missing here. Cherry noted that the rabbit had disappeared from the wagon, but she was too busy with the trays to wonder where it was now. Ann’s voice said aloud exactly what Cherry was thinking:

  “Our first senior assignment isn’t going to be easy.”

  “Annie, I’m scared,” Cherry said. “I wish I already had a graduate’s black velvet ribbon on my cap to prove I’ve got all it takes to be a nurse.”

  Ann slid another tray over to her. “Cheer up, my little worrier. I’m scared too. But we’ve struggled through this far, maybe we’ll wiggle through senior year too.”

  “It’s going to get tougher and tougher,” Cherry groaned. “I just know something terrible is going to happen to me.”

  “Have a cracker,” Ann consoled her practically. “At least with your mouth full you can’t say such doleful things.”

  Cherry mumbled with her mouth crammed with cracker, “Nurses are forbidden to eat on the ward, Evans. Anyhow, if I just work hard in our Pediatrics lectures—” she swallowed the cracker and caught the tray Ann slid down “—I’ll survive children and babies. Or should I say they’ll survive me?”

  Ann picked up two trays, small size, and shook her head at Cherry from the kitchen doorway. “Well, if and when anything terrible happens to you, let me know. I always like to be in on the fun.”

  Cherry hurled a towel at her, missed, picked up her own trays and started out, not too blithely, to the ward.

  For a while her small patients were mercifully busy with their breakfasts. There was some spilling of cereal, and one glass of orange juice was overturned, but otherwise they fended for themselves quite well. Then Cherry took a deep breath and started down her row of beds, to give the small fry their morning baths and to take morning temperature, pulse, and respiration. The night nurse had taken an earlier T.P.R. and had washed faces before breakfast.

  “Can I have dinner at the little table?” said six-year-old Jimmy, as he wriggled under the wash cloth which Cherry firmly applied despite his squirming. “Can I, huh?”

  “We-ell, hurry up and get w
ell faster,” Cherry said, consulting his chart. “Then Dr. Hill will say you can get out of bed.”

  “I’m hurrying all I can,” Jimmy protested. He tugged at her bib. “Ah, please, Miss Ames.”

  “You aren’t hurrying, either. You didn’t eat your prunes just now, and you made an awful fuss about swallowing your medicine.”

  Jimmy dropped his eyes and wrapped one small fist in the sheet. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll eat ’em.” He grinned at her suddenly, and Cherry blew out a big sigh of relief. She had said and done the right things—so far.

  At the next bed Cherry had to lean far over the crib bars and struggle with her small and lively patient. Carlotta, aged four, the child of gypsy parents, was not used to conventional clothes and did not approve of them. She had blithely discarded her nightgown and garbed herself in her blanket.

  “Cigarette,” she welcomed the thermometer and held it in her mouth at a tipsy angle. Then, when Cherry took it away, “No washing. Candy!” she demanded.

  “Washing, then a surprise,” Cherry dodged. “Hold still, you little scamp!” For Carlotta was entertaining herself by yanking her own black curls, blacker even than Cherry’s. “And on goes the nightgown—” Carlotta opened her mouth wide to protest. Cherry dived into her apron pocket and hastily held out two bright-colored hair bows, stowed there for emergency. “Choose!”

  Carlotta chose the red one, and Cherry tied it in her hair. That over, Carlotta again opened her mouth. One howl might set the whole ward to howling. Cherry said desperately, “Want to play with this?” and thrust the green hair bow, too, into the small hands. Carlotta settled down, a small rakish figure of pride and satisfaction.

  Mary Ruth, in the next bed, obediently submitted to Cherry’s quick ministrations without a word. “She’s too quiet,” Cherry thought, placing her fingers on the tiny wrist, and watching the little girl’s breathing. That’s not obedience, that’s listlessness.” She wrote down the heightened temperature and pulse on the chart, and signaled the head nurse with her eyes.