Thomas County cat., 1890-07-31
A WOmans Service.

A WOmans Service.
NO." said the gray haired woman, Il
am not going to help to decorate the
graves. 1 am more accustomed to hand
ling lint and bandages than flowers
that is, was accustomed to it twenty
odd years ago, when was nursing in a
Washington hospital oh, yes, Of course,
after soldiers are dead, flowers are better
for them than anything else, but l can
not help laughing even now, when /
think of an i'll cOntrived fellow whose
leg we were trying to save, and who
was always in bad humor except when
he was eating jellies and custards.
Just let anybody carry flowers to his cot
if they wanted to hear him break out!
+Oh, go to thunder with them tlOwers!'
he would say (and can't tell you what
kind of flowers he called 'em); 4 thought
you was bringing me something to eat.
Usually, unless his leg was hurting him
awfully, he tried to keep from using
bad words, but the sight of flowers,
when he was expecting something else,
seemed to be too much for him. He
had a long siege of it, but at last he
limped out of the hospital on crutches
and had q letter from him some
months afterward saying he had thrown
his crutches aside
Hospital nursing hard work? The
hardest / ever did in any life. You see
] went into it without any training.
We army nurses hadn't been taught to
spareomrselves, and we didn't Thought
at first I'd have to give up because
couldn't sleep at night for seeing the
-amputated arms and legs and other
sickslling sights that had been among
dll day, but l held out to the last
although ] was one of the youngest
nurses in the hospital When l came
out at the end of two years work very
body said looked 10 years older than
when / went in / had never been very
strong, and the doctor said / was too
sympathetic for such a profession. !
tell you it is a dreadful thing to hear
men begging to he killed to be put out
of their misery! Some of the patients
were shamming, making the greatest
ado over little flesh wounds, but these
were very few in comparison with those
who were really hurt.
"No. l do no nursing nowadays. The
girls who are graduating every year
from training schools, with their heads
crammed with book learning aud fami-
liar with all the recent discoveries and
improvements in medicine and surgery,
would look down on a nurse who learned
all she knows during the war. For the
last twenty-five years have been sup
porting myself as housekeeper. In a
hotels No, haven't strength enough
for that. Sometimes l take care of a
widOwer and his children until he mar
-ies again. which he always does too
soon for my convenience, and some
times / keep house for a fashionable
lady dntil / go distracted with her pink
iuncheons and orange breakfasts and
other new tangled arrangements. l
consider myself pretty good manager,
but the trouble is that sometimes there
aren't servants enough for the work that
has to be done, so have to fall to and
help, Which not only lessons the servants
respect for me, but usually brings on an
attack of nervous prOstration that
makes it necessary for me to take a
resting spell in a working women's
horne, though hate dreadfully to see
money going out when there's none
coming in.
"Ought to have a government pen
sion? Yes, that is what have often
been told. 1t is true 1 wasn't wounded
during the war. l didn't shed any
BLOOD for the Union, but / gave it pref
ty much the same thing in my strength,
and pension, no matter how small it
might be, would cone in very well to
spare my savings when am out of
work, and take away my dread Of being
on some one in my old age.
Ny relations wouldn't let me 60 to the
/ know, but if l cannot save
up enough for little rest in the end 1
hope and trust / may die in harness.
There's many q years work in me yet,
Il what strength have left doesn't
give way completely; though it is dis
70 receive smaller salaries
evefy time / make . change ae the
years 90 by."-New York Tribune.