Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1900-05-21
: AN AMUSING WOMAN. !

was ullncult when she was laughing
at them, but without reservation they
admitted that she was the brightest
girl iu town. So they made q great
lamenting when she left there with
her family and went to Chicago. Lucy
was sorry to leave the little town, too,
when she found that she would be
lamented. She began to attach some
Importance to herself, thing she had
previously failed to do, because of all
the absurd creatures in O world of alb
surdity she had seemed the most ri
diculous. If she had even enter
tanned au ambition, she laughed her.
self out of it. Her attitude toward
herself, as well as toward the world,
was that of a mocker. And if .ay
of sentiment dared to find it's wpy in
to her mental compound sha gave
chase to it with derisive mlrth.
She did. whatever she attempted,
we'll. In the village there had been
only the home duties to offer vent to
her activity, and she excelled in these.
When other girls blundered in bread
making Lucy turned out white and
reatherly loaves. When experienced
housewives fretted about the mo-
notony of fare Lncy invented new
dishes. She could make dresses and
embroider, and NOW the lawn, and
curry the horse and drive nail.
Oddly enough none of these things
had satisfied her. They had not
seemed worth while, and she had not
been interested in her own achieve
ments. But when she got to Chicago,
and found what an awful hurry every
body was in, she got in hurry, too,
though she laughed all tho time at the
senseless fret and rush and decided
to become part of the breathless and
preposterous procession.
She went around and looked at the
city, and made up her mind about
men, and women, and business, and
politics, and religion, with the splen-
did ease and dogmatism of the young.
She sent away number of ardent
lovers.
"Love?" said Lucy. "It's an illu-
sion. Any one over forty will tell you
that"
"But you are under twenty" said
one of the protesting ones.
can accident" cried Lucy. ga
mere blunder on my part. 1t will take
me twenty years OF my life to rectify
it, and shall be so busy doing it that
[ really shall be able to think of moth
ing else"
To herself she said:
"When [ marry it shall be for-for
reasons of state, so to speak. | shall
marry capable, brilliant, physically
perfect man. believe in the survival
Of the tittest. L believe IN the selec-
ton of ispecies. This girlish senti-
ment that entraps other girls shall
not wNylay me"
And for once she did not know that
she was amusing.
One morning she awoke with an
idea.
'I am going to be a nurse" she
said. The more she thought of the
idea the better she was pleased. For
what other purpose had that magnlfi-
Gently strong body been given her?
She felt as if she could radiate strength
and courage. She was taken for pro-
baton on the merits of her general
bearing and intelligence.
"But l am afraid you are too fond
of excitement. the head nurse said,
kindly. you seem to have high
spirits 7 fear you will not be able to
>tand the discipline and the confine-
pent."
But it seemed to Lucy the place for
igh spirits. 1t appeared to be, more
ver, the most exciting of places-as
stirring and vital as battlefield.
Here were real tragedies, not mimic
ones. Here was the actual heroism.
She was interested to ABSORPTION.
There was, moreover, plenty to laugh
at--the pomposity of the doctors, the
solemn reverence with which they re-
garded themselves even in the face OF
outrageous blunders and erroneous
diagnoses and futile experiments; the
hypochondriacal whims of the patients
the dry sloughing off of all moral re-
sponsibility on the part of the nurses,
who came to regard themselves as
automata set in motion by the physi-
clans. This phase of the comedy
humane was deliciously funny to Lucy.
She made herself both friends and
enemies by her ill-advised merriment.
doctors are absurd" she com.
mented frequently. 81 have never
seen anything so owlish and so in
effective as doctors. The way they
set up theories before which we all
fall PROSTATE, and the manner in
which they knock the same theories
over presently, while we servilely ap.
plaud, is truly entertaining. 1 am
| glad l came"
"You won't stay if you don't exer.
else more control of your tongue, y
one of the truly obedient nurses once
said to her.
"Oh, WE'LL" said Lucy. "The cars
still run by the hospital. l can't gel
away"
But for all her nonsense she was
soon counted one the best probation
srs the hospital had ever known. Hel