by Helen Wells
The final dedication is to you, both new and former 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 their 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, EdD
Series Editor
CHERRY AMES, STAFF NURSE
CHAPTER I
The Young Volunteers
IN THE KITCHEN CHERRY HELPED HERSELF TO A TASTE OF the potato salad she and her mother had just made for the cookout. Today had been a hot, joyous Fourth of July, and by now, five-thirty P.M., Cherry had worked up quite an appetite. Mrs. Ames saw her and smilingly shook her head.
“Cherry, you and your brother Charles always were great ones for ‘tasting’ every dish before it came to the table. If I don’t stop you, there’ll be a large hole in that platter of potato salad. What are we going to do with her, Velva?”
Velva, the young farm woman who helped Mrs. Ames, laughed comfortably. “Oh, I’ll make us another batch of potato salad if we run short,” she said.
“I don’t think we’ll run short on anything,” Cherry said, looking at the heaped-up platters of deviled eggs and salads and the big chocolate cake Velva had baked. Just looking at these made Cherry hungrier than before. “Shall I take some of these platters out to the yard now, Mother?”
Edith Ames glanced at the kitchen clock. “Well, Charles should be back with the ice cream any minute now. Yes, take them out, dear. Velva and I still have to finish making the iced tea.”
Cherry filled a tray with as many platters as she could carry at one time, and went out of the house. It was a big, old-fashioned house with a spacious yard and shade trees. At the rear of the yard, a safe distance away from Mrs. Ames’s cherished flower garden, a streamer of smoke rose from the brick grill Mr. Ames had built. He and young Dr. Dan Blake were working to get a charcoal fire burning.
Cherry grinned at their attire. Her father sported a chef’s cap and apron. Dr. Dan wore a brightly, wildly patterned sports shirt over his trousers, probably in reaction to the whites he wore all week at Hilton Hospital. Dr. Blake was a new young M.D. from Colorado; for a year now he had been in this neighborly, middlesized town of Hilton, Illinois. As a resident physician, he both worked and lived at the hospital, but this rather isolated him and he was a little lonesome on his first job. Cherry often saw Dr. Dan outside the hospital, as well as during her duty hours on Women’s Orthopedics. She was glad her family liked Dan, too.
“Hi, you chefs!” Cherry called.
Dr. Dan Blake turned, flushed from the heat of the grill. “Here, let me give you a hand—” He came to take her tray, and carried it to the picnic table. “Mm, look at all the home cooking!”
Cherry smiled up at him. Dr. Dan had the same dark crisp hair and vivid coloring as Cherry; in a way he looked more like her than her blond twin brother did. “We expect you to do justice to our home cooking,” she said.
Dr. Dan smiled back. “I just hope you like the way I grill beefburgers. Of course your dad is the master chef.”
Mr. Ames shoved back his chef’s cap and mopped his forehead. “I am a real-estate man pretending to be a cook, and not doing very well at it,” he said. “Come back here, Dr. Dan. I need you.”
Cherry set out the platters of food on the picnic table and returned to the kitchen to reload the tray. When she came outdoors again, Charlie drove up and parked the car in front of the house. A gallon container of ice cream sat beside him on the front seat. He got out of the car with it and called to Cherry:
“I’m starving! When do we eat?”
“Well, Dr. Fortune and Midge aren’t here yet,” Cherry said.
“I saw Midge talking to some kids on the next block. Maybe she’s on her way here,” Charlie said, and disappeared into the house.
Midge probably was trying to do her share, Cherry thought, in recruiting teenage volunteers to work in the hospital this summer. Extra help was badly needed in all hospitals, and especially in Hilton Hospital. It had no nursing school, hence no student nurses to help the overworked R.N.’s. Every one of its three hundred beds was now occupied, and every one of the hospital’s many departments needed helpers. The hospital’s limited budget required volunteers. With summer, most of the adult volunteers were going off on vacations with their families; they had to be replaced.
Last summer Hilton Hospital had tried out, in a small way, training a few junior volunteers. Midge Fortune had been one of the Jayvees then, and that was why she was such an enthusiastic recruiter now. Last summer’s experiment had shown that the youngsters could bring real help and uplifting spirits to the hospital. The program had petered out over the winter when the teenagers had been busy with schoolwork.
Well, that often happened, Cherry thought. She hoped Midge, in her enthusiasm, would not invite anyone too young. The American Hospital Association required that a junior volunteer must be at least fourteen to serve in the hospital. To be a ward aide, and work with the nurses and patients, the junior must be at least sixteen.
Cherry walked across the lawn to see whether the chefs needed an assistant. They did not; everything was ready. Mr. Ames sat down on the picnic bench and helped himself and Dr. Dan to a “sample” of potato salad, while they waited for the Fortunes.
“How’s your schedule coming along?” Dr. Dan asked Cherry. “Wish I had some way to help you.”
“Thanks. It’ll work out,” Cherry said.
At her head nurse’s request, she had been figuring out a temporary schedule—a schedule by which she could teach some of the incoming juniors, and still do her full share of nursing for her patients. Cherry had offered to teach, since she had already done so the previous summer.
Midge came running into the Ames’s yard. “Hi, you kids!” she said. She hugged Mr. Ames, grinned at Cherry and Dr. Dan, and popped a pickle into her mouth.
Midge was practically a member of the Ames family. Her father, Dr. Joe Fortune, had been the Ames’s doctor from the time Cherry and Charlie were born. Midge’s mother had died when the girl was little, and she had grown up as much in the Ames’s house as in her own. She was sixteen now. She pushed her light-brown hair off her moist forehead and said:
“Whew! I got three more promises—Oh, before I forget! My father said to tell you he’s pretty tired from watching the parade with me this morning and treating an emergency case this afternoon, so would you all please excuse him if he comes over later? He’s taking a nap now.”
The others nodded. Dr. Joe was not very strong. Cherry said she had better tell her mother and Velva, so the cookout could begin now. The two chefs very seriously put the first round of beefburgers on the grill.
Midge followed Cherry across the yard. “I got promises from two more girls and a boy,” Midge announced.
Cherry smiled. “Good for you. Relax, now. You don’t have to do the whole recruiting job single-handed.”
The high school and the junior high school had cooperated with the hospital in initiating the Jayvee program. Cherry did not want to deflate Midge’s enthusiasm by reminding her that all during the last weeks of school—final examinations notwithstanding—the teacher-sponsors and the Jayvee announcements on the school bulletin board had awakened a lively response. Another effective means had been that radio disk jockey’s appeal for Jayvees. It had brought in so many immediate telephoned inquiries that the hospital switchboard had lighted up as if disaster calls were coming in. Some of the doctors and nurses did think the juniors were going to be a disaster. Some of the youngsters’ parents had their doubts, too, and parents’ written permission was needed to become a Jayvee.
“Anyway, you have to remember,” Cherry said, to Midge, “that all the promises so far are only from prospective Jayvees. Some of these eager beavers will tour the hospital next Monday, and decide that hospital work is not for them. Some of them won’t even show up for
the tour.”
Midge protested, but Cherry insisted.
“Another thing,” Cherry said. “Miss Vesey, our Director of Volunteers, won’t find that every applicant is the right person to work in a hospital. She says she has to discourage a number of applicants, grownups, even, because they’re either not right for hospital work, or they may be overconfident, or else they’re so shy that they’re not much help.”
“We’ll do better than that,” Midge said stoutly.
“You’ll see,” said Cherry. “Come help me carry out the iced tea.”
Mrs. Ames was sorry to learn that Dr. Fortune felt so tired, but said he could have his supper whenever he came. Charlie helped the two girls bring out the rest of the dishes, Velva and Mrs. Ames followed, and all but Dr. Dan sat down at the picnic table. He insisted on being the one to serve the beefburgers since, as Mr. Ames conceded, he had prepared them.
“Delicious!” everyone said, and Velva said, “Better’n the ones I make.” Dr. Dan was so pleased that he flushed. There was not much conversation during supper; everybody was busy eating. Charlie amiably offered to grill the second round of beefburgers, but—rather to his relief—Dr. Dan was voted master chef. The smell of charcoal smoke mingled with the fresh fragrance of flowers and grass. The sun dropped, and long shadows stretched across the yard. By the time the seven of them had enjoyed Velva’s cake, it was evening.
“Will you sing for us, Dr. Dan?” said Mrs. Ames. “I hope you brought your guitar.”
He had left it in his car, parked at the curb. “Just in case no one wanted to be pestered with my singing,” he remarked. Now he brought the guitar to the picnic table. Striking a chord, Dr. Dan looked at Cherry and said:
“What would you like?”
“ ‘Wabash Blues,’ ” said Cherry and Charlie in the same breath. The Wabash River flowed eight miles from here.
“ ‘My Indiana Home,’ ” said Velva, who came from the state of Indiana just across the Wabash.
Mrs. Ames asked for “Home on the Range.” Mr. Ames requested a spiritual. Dr. Dan sang them all, and sang them well. Neighbors strolling past paused to listen.
The moon came out. In the Ames’s house the telephone rang and Mrs. Ames went to answer it. She came back outdoors and said:
“That was your father, Midge. He said he just woke up, isn’t presentable, and isn’t ambitious enough to come over. We’ll pack up a picnic lunch for him and somebody will take it to him.”
“We’ll all go,” said Cherry.
As soon as Velva had the picnic basket ready, Cherry, Midge, Dr. Dan, and Charlie all piled into Dr. Dan’s car. First stop was the Fortunes’ cottage. Then they went for a cooling drive through Lincoln Park. Late as it was, the excitement of a big holiday still filled the town.
Dr. Dan said in a low voice to Cherry, “I’d hoped we could go off for a drive by ourselves this evening. Guess I sang for too long.”
“Never mind,” said Cherry. “The summer is just beginning.”
The rest of that first week in July was hot, even for corn growing country. After a slow, hot weekend, Cherry was glad to be back at work in the hospital on Monday morning. She came in at seven-thirty A.M., half an hour earlier than usual, to allow herself time for the Jayvee tour later that morning.
As she stood in uniform in the main corridor waiting for the elevator, an orderly who worked in Emergency came up. He was wheeling a high stretcher on which a young woman lay with knees and wrists in odd, stiff positions. The patient was dressed in night clothes and robe. She was conscious but dazed—probably with pain, Cherry thought.
The orderly motioned Cherry aside and said in a low voice:
“I’m taking this young lady to your ward, Nurse Ames. Dr. Blake saw her just now—on Emergency—rheumatoid arthritis attack—said he’ll be up on Orthopedics right away.”
“Thanks,” Cherry said, and with her lips silently formed the question, “Medication?” The orderly said, “Aspirin.” Cherry bent over the young woman to reassure her. Even with her face screwed up in pain she was pretty, with soft brown hair and velvety dark-brown eyes, and almost as small as a child. She looked up at Cherry and gasped out:
“Nurse, I don’t want to be an invalid! I’m afraid!”
“You won’t be disabled,” Cherry said. “You’re young enough to get well. And we’re going to give you all the right medication and treatment. Rest, now.”
“There’s no known cure for arthritis, my doctor said so!” The young woman’s dark eyes filled with tears. “Look, I can’t move my wrists or my knees. Swollen stiff. They hurt so! I can’t walk! I’ll—I’ll spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair—”
Cherry knew that arthritis made its sufferers pessimistic and often emotionally dependent. She said kindly but firmly, “Don’t be frightened. We’re here to help you.”
The patient had not heard a word Cherry said. She cried all the way upstairs. Cherry dismissed the orderly, and aided by the ward’s alerted night nurse, transferred the patient to a prepared bed. She tried to hide her wet face in the pillow. The other women patients, awake in their beds, watched in silence. Some of them, Cherry realized, were pretty discouraged themselves; she wished a few young Jayvees were here to distract them.
Dr. Dan Blake came in at once. He smiled at Cherry and Mrs. Page, the night nurse, as he handed them the admitting interviewer’s notes, then went over to talk softly to the new patient.
Cherry and the night nurse read together: “Wilmot, Margaret (Peggy). 1617 Lincoln Drive, Hilton. Age twenty-six. Widow, no relatives near. Brought in ambulance by Dr. Fairall who treated her two weeks ago for a severe strep throat. Dr. Fairall stated impossible to foresee that infection would move from strep throat into blood stream and into joints, causing acute rheumatoid arthritis. Sudden explosive attack early this A.M. with temperature of 103. Weakness, fatigue, recent loss of weight, now very painful swollen red wrists and knees. Patient incapacitated, alone, barely able to telephone doctor.”
“Poor thing,” Cherry murmured.
“I should say so,” the night nurse murmured back. “If you’d like me to stay on after eight o’clock, I can. I hear you’re going to be busy with teenagers this morning.”
“Thanks, but you’ve put in a long night’s work,” Cherry said to Mrs. Page. “If necessary, the juniors will have to wait, or Miss Vesey will take charge of them.”
Peggy Wilmot had stopped crying. The young doctor motioned Cherry and Ethel Page into the hall, to the nurses’ station outside the ward door, where the patients could not overhear—and worry.
“Well”—Dr. Dan Blake stopped smiling—“this new case looks plenty serious, but she will not require surgery. Of course for a definitive examination and orders, we’ll have to see what Dr. Watson says when he comes in.” Dr. Ray Watson was the senior doctor in charge of all Orthopedic wards. “He’ll want to consult with Dr. Fairall. In the meantime,” Dr. Dan Blake said, “we’ll support those inflamed wrists and knees with splints, and give her all the comfort measures we can. Mrs. Page, please bring me four aluminum splints. Cherry—I mean, Miss Ames—I’d like you to work with me.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Cherry said. She did try, at work, to forget that they were friends after working hours.
Peggy Wilmot had fallen asleep. Cherry gently woke her so she would not be startled when Dr. Blake applied the splints. He explained to her that the lightweight “gutter” splints, open on top, would support the inflamed joints of her wrists and knees.
“First of all, Mrs. Wilmot, you must rest these inflamed joints,” he said. “Moving your wrists and knees will cause pain. The splints will immobilize them and also hold them in normal positions, so that when the inflammation subsides, you won’t be left with any deformity.”
Peggy Wilmot winced with pain as Dr. Blake adjusted the splints that Mrs. Page brought. “I won’t be deformed, will I?” she asked.
“No, you won’t,” Dr. Dan said. “Now why are you looking so worried? Don’t you trust your
doctors and nurses?”
He threw Cherry a look that said, “You’ll have to reassure her and get rid of this worry of hers.” Cherry nodded. The patient’s attitude had a great deal to do with getting well.
By the time four splints were applied, with light sandbags placed against the splints to increase the corrective force, the night nurse had left and the daytime staff had come in.
The head nurse, Miss Julia Greer, came over to welcome the new patient. Confidence exuded from Miss Greer’s trim, erect figure, and kindness shone in her lined, intelligent face. Cherry never had worked with a more superlative nurse than Julia Greer; the entire hospital respected and loved this woman who had devoted a lifetime to it. Some of her strength came across to Peggy Wilmot, who smiled for the first time this morning.
And after Cherry had given her the additional aspirin Dr. Blake prescribed, and the other daytime nurse, Mary Corsi, had come over to say hello to young Mrs. Wilmot, and Cherry had washed her face, she said:
“You’re all so kind to me. I wish you’d call me Peggy.”
“Peggy it is,” said Cherry. “Now how would you like some breakfast?”
It was necessary to feed the helpless patient gently, without hurry. She ate gratefully, dependently. She reminded Cherry of a child, a small, scared child.
Morning care and breakfast for the other patients took up Cherry’s time until Dr. Ray Watson came in on his morning rounds. He came booming and stomping in, an abundantly good-humored elderly man, and the entire ward perked up.
Cherry wanted to stay to hear his prognosis and what drugs he ordered for the new patient, but Miss Julia Greer whispered to her:
“The Director of Volunteers telephoned just now that you’d better come down right away. She says there’s a small, enthusiastic mob of juniors, and that several of them are asking for you.”
“But I want to hear about Mrs. Wilmot—”
“Come back at lunchtime, my dear, and I’ll tell you. You’ve done all anyone can for her, for now. Getting help from the juniors is important, too.”