by Helen Wells
There was indeed something to see in the vast basement under Spencer Hall. The Superintendent of Nurses herself assembled the senior class. She did not make any announcement. She merely asked them to follow her, and led them past the maze of service rooms to a further area of the basement. “Miss Reamer has a new hair-do,” somebody whispered. But they had caught her serious mood and could not chatter tonight about her newly swirled gray locks. In the deepest part of the basement, Miss Reamer paused before a steel door. She unlocked it and switched on lights.
Here, far under the building, was a complete Operating Room! Beyond it, deep in shadow, they saw a great hall constructed with steel beams and thick brick walls. It was filled with at least a hundred cots. More cots, and stretchers, stood stacked against the walls. Adjoining it were a kitchen, bathrooms, a thoroughly stocked laboratory.
“Our country is at war,” Miss Reamer said. “This new equipment is here in case of air raid or other catastrophe. I hope we will never have to use it.”
Cherry felt her throat tighten. The young women’s faces, under the blazing arc of the operating lamp, in the shadowy corners of the Operating Room, were soberly angry and determined. Miss Reamer locked the steel door and led them down a corridor along which were a series of small rooms. More cots, more stretchers, stood piled high on either side of the corridor. There was not much Christmas spirit down here. At intervals along the corridor new raw brick walls formed square safety zones.
Miss Reamer unlocked the door to one of the small rooms. “These are all alike,” she said. Cherry and the others went in at Miss Reamer’s invitation, and opened the tall steel lockers. They found heavy folded equipment for field hospitals. Ranged on the floor were dozens of black leather medical kits, containing supplies of all kinds.
“These things are yours,” Miss Reamer said. “If it should ever be necessary, the seniors will ride ambulance with the doctors.”
A murmur rose. It was a strange sort of Christmas present to the senior class.
“No one need go if she does not want to,” Miss Reamer said gently.
The young women stirred. Their whispers surged around Cherry. “Of course we’ll go!” the nurses were saying indignantly. “Try and stop us!” They looked expectantly toward the Superintendent of Nurses.
“What you see here is grim—but necessary,” Miss Reamer went on. “Nurses above all people can face reality. I’m not worried about a single one of you—because I know you truly are nurses. And that’s the highest praise I can give!”
Seeing the emergency equipment made Cherry restless. She was working this month on Nursery, with Gwen. Ordinarily, Cherry would have settled into this airy, peaceful ward as snugly as the babies slept in their little beds. There were no seasons here, no Christmas, no war.
Behind a glass partition, where proud parents and visitors could look in at them, lay a shelf of babies sleeping in a row. Each baby had a warm crib of his own, protected from draughts. Cherry was amused when the nurse in charge here told her to make these miniature, removable beds exactly as she would make a bed for adults, mitred corners and all. Another thing which amused Cherry, and touched her too, was to see big men doctors bending gently over tiny babies. There were nearly thirty babies here, brand-new from the Delivery Room, and all of them new acquaintances to Cherry. They kept Cherry and Gwen and the two graduates stepping.
“Feed one, and another one yowls for its whey,” Gwen complained laughingly to Cherry. She had finished bathing one baby and was scrubbing up before touching another. Both girls were wearing gowns and masks over their mouths and noses, for babies are very susceptible to infection. “Feed that one and the first one howls again. It’s a race!”
Cherry mumbled “Uh-huh” sympathetically but she was too busy to answer, what with the plump and wriggling baby on her lap. She had just washed his scalp with soap and water. But because he was less than ten days old, and his skin was so sensitive that it had turned bright red, she did not risk skin infection with a soap and water bath. Instead, Cherry gently cleansed him with a little oil. The baby seemed to be enjoying it, for he grunted and waved his arms and legs.
“What would you like to wear today?” she consulted the baby.
The baby blinked amiably but expressed no preference.
“In that case,” Cherry lifted him up deftly, “what would you say to a square diaper, a nice cotton shirt and a fine old hospital gown?”
Apparently it was all right with the baby. Cherry thought it was something like playing dolls, but a good deal more satisfactory. She carried him back to his crib and put a loose light warm cover over him. He promptly fell asleep—“without so much as a thank you,” Cherry thought, and went to scrub herself before bathing the next infant.
The moment she had turned her back on the shelf of babies, that restlessness again surged over her. Cherry did not know quite what it was. It seemed to have something to do with being a senior—restless at still being in school, impatient to work on her own as a professional.
“But taking care of new-born babies is important work,” Gwen objected, when Cherry confided this to her. “Or maybe Christmas or facing a birthday does things to you. It does to me.”
“It isn’t either one—exactly—it’s—Oh, I’m tired of being a mere student. I’ve acquired most of my skills by now. I want to get out in the world and use them.”
“In just which part of the great wide world?” Gwen inquired practically. “And in just which branch of the dozens of branches of nursing?”
Cherry could not answer that, so she pretended to be busy at the formula table with nursing bottles, funnels, and kettles. “You win,” she finally admitted meekly. “I don’t know.” Visions of those emergency kits rose before her eyes. “Yes, maybe I do know,” she said suddenly. She could nurse right here on the home front—for civilians were fighting this war, too. But for a while, she would keep this half-decision to herself.
Gwen’s bright inquisitive eyes warned Cherry a question was coming. Fortunately the lively young graduate nurse who was in charge of the premature babies came in just then.
“Hello, you two,” she said with a pleasant nod. She had pinned a little sprig of holly on her uniform. “Miss Ames, we’re sending Miss Jones another helper for today and you’re coming in to help me. We’re so short of special baby nurses that I’ll have to take a chance on you.”
Cherry’s heart sank as she followed Miss Towne’s brisk steps down the corridor. Handling normal babies was a delicate enough business, but caring for babies born at eight and a half months or earlier, or babies weighing less than five pounds at birth, was immeasurably more risky. Cherry’s uneasiness grew as she entered the special room and the warm still air, kept always at eighty degrees, drowsily caressed her face. She and Miss Towne donned fresh masks.
“Too hot for you in here?” Miss Towne asked, seeing the red creep up Cherry’s face above the gauze mask. “It’s a bit uncomfortable until you get used to it. But you know, with these poor mites, loss of heat for even a little time can mean loss of life. See, each one has its heated incubator.”
Cherry gazed down at the tiny, tiny babies, curled up asleep in their special beds, some of them not much bigger than her two fists. One of them had no fingernails or toenails yet. Another one had no eyelashes yet. It was work for them even to breathe. Miss Towne was saying they existed on breast milk, fed with a medicine dropper. Some of these morsels of humanity might live and some day become strong men and women, some might not survive the year. Cherry felt a wave of pity as she looked at the struggling little beings. She thought of their mothers, too.
“Would you—would you call this home-front nursing?” Cherry blurted out. The question sounded irrelevant. She could not say what had prompted her to ask it—this new restlessness, perhaps.
“How strange for you to say that!” Miss Towne exclaimed. “You must be reading my thoughts!” She looked searchingly at Cherry, then bit her lip.
“Why?”
Miss
Towne looked embarrassed. “I hate to talk about it, and still, it’s a relief to say it out loud. The Army’s calling for nurses and I want to go. I’m young, I’m strong, and if I say so myself, I’m a good all-around nurse. I feel I ought to go. And to tell you the truth, Miss Ames,” she smiled at Cherry, “I’m raring to get out of hospital routine and taste some excitement!
“But,” Miss Towne looked pensively around at the babies in their incubators, “I ask myself what will become of these little creatures if I walk out on them. Someone has to save soldiers’lives. Someone has to save these infants’ lives, too.”
“The hospital will get a nurse to take your place,” Cherry suggested.
“There isn’t anybody to take my place. You see for yourself,” Miss Towne said worriedly, “how all the young nurses are leaving here in droves for the Army hospitals. Why, our staff here is depleted!”
It was true. Cherry was pinch-hitting here right this minute, for that very reason. She remembered the extra nights she had put in on the wards a month and two months ago, because they were short-handed. Ann and Gwen had been pressed into service for extra hours, too. Suppose—on top of this shortage—suppose there were an emergency? Not necessarily an air raid: it might all too possibly be a train wreck, a flood, an epidemic. Where were the extra nurses to come from then?
Miss Towne set to work checking the babies’ weight and they said no more about it. Cherry worked hard and with concentration all that day, but she could not get the question and the restlessness out of her mind. It shut out even the excitement of Christmas and her approaching birthday.
The Christmas gaiety was catching, though. In spite of herself, Cherry began to plan with Ann and Gwen what they would wear to the doctors’ and internes’ Christmas Eve entertainment. Dance dresses were permitted. It would be the first time Lex would see her in anything besides her work-a-day uniform.
Downtown, the city bustled with festive crowds and the shop windows glittered with holiday decorations. Cherry had glimpsed in one of the shops exactly the dress she would like to wear—if she only had it! It was a little sophisticated for her, she supposed, and definitely extravagant—the exquisite sort of dress which called for flowers in her hair and fragile high-heeled slippers and perfume and music. But there did not seem much hope of getting the dream dress, barring miracles. Cherry went about her work in the Nursery and tried, not too successfully, to forget about it. Before she knew it, her birthday was only two days off, Christmas Eve and the dance only three short days away. And she still had nothing to wear!
Cherry returned to her room that afternoon to find her family’s birthday packages, and her father’s letter and check, awaiting her. A check! Blessings on him! She obediently left the gifts unopened till her birthday, raced wildly downtown, found the dress still there and within reach of her purse, and practically floated on wings back to the hospital, hugging the lovely thing.
On her birthday—the day before Christmas—Cherry saved opening her presents until that afternoon, when Ann and Gwen and some of the others could be on hand. There were “Oh’s” and “Ah’s” as Cherry unwrapped the huge package from her mother: a warm gay red robe and furry slippers to match.
“You must have an awfully nice mother,” Vivian Warren said wistfully. Vivian’s mother, worn out by her long struggle with poverty, had too many children and too much work and worry to be able to show Vivian much affection.
“I have a darling mother,” Cherry replied. She wished the girls could see her mother: a slender, sweet-faced woman, still youthful, interested and active, and with a sense of humor about everything, except her gardening.
Charlie’s present was next, and as Cherry opened the box, she was startled. Her blond twin brother apparently had been unable to decide between a professional sort of gift and a very feminine gift, so with his usual devotion to Cherry, he had sent both. Side by side, Cherry found a shiny pair of bandage scissors and a bottle of perfume. He had written on the card, “One way or another, you’ll slay ’em!”
“And what did your father send?” Ann asked, smiling.
“A check.” Cherry glanced involuntarily toward the closet. “I spent it for that terrific dress I’ve been telling you about—you’ll see it tonight.” By now the dress had become a sort of symbol to her, a reward and an antidote for all this month’s hard work and sober thinking.
“Two more,” Gwen said impatiently. “What’s in those?”
The two final packages contained a good-looking wool muffler from Midge and a book from Dr. Joe. Cherry felt a warm glow when she opened his present; it meant that he had completely forgiven her for that foolishness with Midge.
“Maybe you’ll have another surprise,” Bertha hinted, and got to her feet. There were sounds in Crowley corridor of nurses getting ready for supper. They all suddenly realized Christmas Eve was almost upon them, and rose to go.
“What do you mean, Bertha? Hey,” Cherry recalled, “you did some hinting at supper a couple of times, too. What’s up?”
But Bertha laughed and trooped out with the others.
Alone in her room, Cherry could not resist taking a peek at the cherished dress. She could barely wait for evening to come and put it on. Just then a rap came at her door.
“Ann?”
“No. It’s me,”
Cherry didn’t know who “me” was but she called, “Come on in!” and hastily put the dress away. No one came in. There was another timid rap. Cherry went to the door and yanked it open. There stood Mildred Burnham.
Cherry was amazed. It was the first time that the girl had made any move toward her. She must be in trouble, something must be wrong. Cherry remembered their last, unfortunate interview, and despite herself, she stiffened. She asked Mildred in.
“Thank you, but I won’t come in. It’s late and—uh—you have to get ready for the party, I guess.” Mildred gulped. Her heavy sallow face was flushed.
“There’s no hurry, and you know I’m always late anyhow,” Cherry smiled. Joking concealed her mixed feelings. “I’m known around here as the late Miss Ames!” To her amazement, Mildred Burnham smiled back. Well, this was news! Perhaps this was what Bertha had been hinting about. But what did Mildred want of her?
The girl in the gray uniform shifted from one foot to the other. “I found out something,” she mumbled. “I mean, I learned today is your birthday and—well, here!” She thrust a flat white box at Cherry.
It was Cherry’s turn to gulp. “You—you brought me a present?” Mildred had turned a dull red. It was not easy for her to make any display of emotion, even this conventional one. Cherry herself was so surprised and puzzled she groped for words.
“What did I do to deserve this? I ought to be opening it, instead of standing here wondering what’s in it!” She seized Mildred’s hand and drew her into the room. Mildred sat down unhappily on the edge of a chair. Cherry, as she untied the ribbon, asked herself, “Yes, honestly, what did I do to deserve this? I scolded her, I was disgusted with her, I’ve completely ignored her recently … and she turns around and gives me a present!”
When she opened the box, she found a half dozen hand-drawn, hand-hemmed handkerchiefs. Mildred obviously had made them, and they must have taken a great deal of patient work. But why? Why? It could only mean that Mildred wanted to be friends after all. As Cherry admired and thanked Mildred for the handkerchiefs, she was trying to figure out the reason for this sudden change. And she was suffused with a burning sense of shame at her own prejudice and intolerance. Why, the very first time she had laid eyes on Mildred Burnham, she had taken a dislike to her!
“No one ever bothered to make things by hand for me before.” Cherry gratefully smiled at her.
Mildred was edging out into the hall. “I’m glad you like them.” Her rather lumpy figure slumped, then straightened. “Good-by.”
“Good-by and thanks an awful lot and be sure you come again!”
Cherry watched her go, then closed the door, wondering. She was glad that s
he could report to Miss Reamer, now, that their relations had improved. Mildred’s sudden change of behavior was a mystery indeed. Cherry would have to solve it later, because now she had to dash for supper, then hurry back and dress for the doctors’ party. Church bells were ringing in the distance, happy laughter resounded in the corridor, out in the yard in the deep blue dusk an immense fir tree glistened with snow and ropes of blue lights. It was already Christmas Eve.
CHAPTER VIII
Black Lace
NINE O’CLOCK! CHERRY HAD THE DREAM DRESS ON. LEX’S flowers had arrived. She peered at herself in the small mirror and sighed with satisfaction. Diaphanous black chiffon clung and swirled about her, airy as smoke. Narrow black lace fluttered at the edge of the pert short skirt, delicate shadowy lace lay softly across Cherry’s shoulders and the hollow of her throat. Lex’s cool white gardenias were pinned in her jet-black hair, and she wore a single small strand of pearls. She certainly did not feel like her work-a-day self! Anything could happen tonight—romance, adventure, anything! She splurged with Charlie’s perfume, snatched up her heavy coat, and ran into the hall.
“Cherry! Let’s see you!” Gwen shrieked. A bevy of girls were chattering and pirouetting for one another in the corridor. “Look at siren Ames, will you? And just smell her! Gosh, Cherry!” they all exclaimed at once. “And, Ann! Why, no one’d ever know it was us!”
Every girl had contrived to appear her loveliest. Ann was in blue, a rich soft simple dress that made her blue eyes glow, and she wore the heavy twisted gold jewelry that had belonged to her grandmother.
“You look like something out of a portrait!” Cherry declared.
Gwen whirled around in her crackling cinnamon-colored taffeta, which made her red hair seem on fire. Bertha and Vivian had proudly made their own dresses: Vivian’s was a flaring black skirt and a foamy white chiffon blouse; Bertha’s Dresden-like flower print set off her fresh pastel coloring and candid eyes. Josie blinked without her glasses, but she looked very appealing in a red-and-white candy stripe and a crisp red bow in her hair. Marie Swift wore urbane gray, and Mai Lee’s dress was encrusted with Chinese embroideries. Cherry was the only one who had flowers. She was glad no one asked who had sent them. Lex was misunderstood enough as it was.