She had moved to the door, and he followed her, stooping
a little to pass under the low chandelier.
“Good-night,” said Sidney.
“Good-bye—and God bless you.”
She went out, and he closed the door softly behind
her.
Sidney never forgot her early impressions of the hospital,
although they were chaotic enough at first.
There were uniformed young women coming and going,
efficient, cool-eyed, low of voice. There were
medicine-closets with orderly rows of labeled bottles,
linen-rooms with great stacks of sheets and towels,
long vistas of shining floors and lines of beds.
There were brisk internes with duck clothes and brass
buttons, who eyed her with friendly, patronizing glances.
There were bandages and dressings, and great white
screens behind which were played little or big dramas,
baths or deaths, as the case might be. And over
all brooded the mysterious authority of the superintendent
of the training-school, dubbed the Head, for short.
Twelve hours a day, from seven to seven, with the
off-duty intermission, Sidney labored at tasks which
revolted her soul. She swept and dusted the wards,
cleaned closets, folded sheets and towels, rolled bandages—did
everything but nurse the sick, which was what she had
come to do.
At night she did not go home. She sat on the
edge of her narrow white bed and soaked her aching
feet in hot water and witch hazel, and practiced taking
pulses on her own slender wrist, with K.’s little
watch.
Out of all the long, hot days, two periods stood out
clearly, to be waited for and cherished. One
was when, early in the afternoon, with the ward in
spotless order, the shades drawn against the August
sun, the tables covered with their red covers, and
the only sound the drone of the bandage-machine as
Sidney steadily turned it, Dr. Max passed the door
on his way to the surgical ward beyond, and gave her
a cheery greeting. At these times Sidney’s
heart beat almost in time with the ticking of the little
watch.
The other hour was at twilight, when, work over for
the day, the night nurse, with her rubber-soled shoes
and tired eyes and jangling keys, having reported
and received the night orders, the nurses gathered
in their small parlor for prayers. It was months
before Sidney got over the exaltation of that twilight
hour, and never did it cease to bring her healing and
peace. In a way, it crystallized for her what
the day’s work meant: charity and its sister,
service, the promise of rest and peace. Into
the little parlor filed the nurses, and knelt, folding
their tired hands.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” read the Head
out of her worn Bible; “I shall not want.”
And the nurses: “He maketh me to lie down
in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still
waters.”
And so on through the psalm to the assurance at the
end, “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.” Now and then there was a death
behind one of the white screens. It caused little
change in the routine of the ward. A nurse stayed
behind the screen, and her work was done by the others.
When everything was over, the time was recorded exactly
on the record, and the body was taken away.
