After prolonged discussion, Virginia and Joe decided that the room
should be papered in an old fashioned design with a background of
egg-shell blue. The windows were to be curtained with a fine net
having a filet edge, and the furniture was to be of massive mahogany.
Pictures portraying sporting scenes believed suitable by Joe and of
gentle landscapes considered appropriate by the girl were to adorn the
walls in equal number. A harmonizing smoking set was added, and the
floor was to be strewn with Oriental rugs. Thus furnished, it was
confidently argued, the room would be restful and agreeable to the most
discriminating of motorcyclists.
When this plan was presented with pride to Miss Knight, she addressed
the pair in a sarcastic manner, "Did you by chance have in mind the
furnishing of a bridal suite? Haven't you forgotten a breakfast room
and a pipe organ?"
Reduced to a fitting condition of humbleness they sat at her feet, so
to speak, as she discoursed. "The room set aside is bright and cheery.
Its walls, windows and floor need no treatment. Put in a double enameled
bedstead--a brass one if you like. Have an enameled dresser and a plain
rocker and chairs of similar type. You may have a plain wardrobe and
an enameled medicine table, too. That's all." She smiled at them. "I
have conceded a lot, too."
"You have beautiful taste, Miss Knight. Don't you think so, Joe?"
remarked Virginia with great solemnity.
The motorcyclist nodded a vigorous agreement.
Thus encouraged the nurse became didactic. "The furnishing of a room
for the sick," she lectured, "is not a matter of taste. It is a
question of cleanliness. Give me a clean place with plenty of fresh
air and sunshine--nothing else counts." Before such simplicity the
pretentious plans faded, and in the end the wisdom of the nurse prevailed.
When Virginia left the ward that day it had grown extremely warm.
"Hotter than fiddlers in Tophet," Miss Knight called it.
"Where are those poor babies?" Virginia asked, as from a distant part
of the building came the petulant sound of infants protesting in the only
way they could against the high temperature.
"They are in the Free Dispensary,--the cases which are brought in from
the outside. They would wring your heart," the nurse answered.
Distress showed in Virginia's face. "I am going there and see if I can
help," she cried, and with a parting smile at Miss Knight she hurried
to the Dispensary.
Doctor Jackson nodded to her as she entered. "Every degree that the
temperature rises means more sick babies," he worried.
The peevish, fretful cries of the infants and the troubled looks of the
worn mothers filled the girl with pity. "How dreadful, Doctor. The poor
darlings. I wish I could help them," she said.
The medical man glanced at her with new interest. "Miss Dale, didn't
you give that concert at the Lucinda Home?" he asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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