Family -- Juvenile fiction; Schools -- Juvenile fiction
Fannie could not twist and squirm in his strong arms, and Rosemary
deftly washed out the great jagged cut that had slashed across the
slim instep, and then, further scandalizing Nina, tore a wide
bandage from the bottom of her petticoat, brought the edges of the
cut closely together and bound it tightly.
"I think you ought to carry her to the truck," she said, when she
had finished. "Look out, Will, she's fainted. Lay her on the grass."
The sight of Fannie, white and motionless, frightened the girls, and
it must be confessed the boys, too, far more than her steady
screaming. Rosemary did not appear to be alarmed, but borrowing
Jack's handkerchief, dipped it in the water and gently bathed
Fannie's forehead. Then she took her head in her lap and waited a
few minutes. Presently Fannie opened her eyes.
"She's better now," said Rosemary.
"I'll carry her to the truck," declared Will Mears, looking with
respect on the young nurse. "As you say, I think we'd better get her
to a doctor. Some of you run on ahead and explain what has happened
and tell them we want to start back right away."
The girls sped on ahead and in a few minutes the picnic had broken
up hastily. A sort of bed was made in one of the trucks, using the
sweaters and wraps of the other girls, and Fannie was laid on this,
with her head in Rosemary's lap. Will Mears had no confidence in any
one else's ability to take care of his sister.
"She would have bled to death, if it hadn't been for Rosemary," he
said to Jack, as the truck started, the driver carefully avoiding
the bad places in the road in order to spare the patient any
unnecessary jar. "I never saw a girl before who could do up cuts and
not scream at the sight of blood. I suppose it's because her brother
is a doctor."
"Not altogether," replied Jack curtly. "Rosemary doesn't happen to
be the screaming kind of girl."
Will Mears directed that the truck be driven to Doctor Hugh's office
where, by good fortune, they found him just in from a call, and
Fannie, quiet and spent now, with no breath left for screaming, had
her wound washed with an antiseptic and dressed. Then she was taken
home and put to bed. She was weak from the loss of blood and the
consequences might have been serious, the doctor admitted, if the
cut had not been tied in time. But to Will Mears' glowing praise of
Rosemary, he replied that she had only used her knowledge of
first-aid treatment.
"Then all girls ought to learn it," burst out the high school
junior. "Those other girls stood around like perfect dubs. Fannie
could have bled to death, for all they did."
"All girls ought to know first-aid," affirmed the doctor. "My
sisters are not going to be left helpless when an accident happens."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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