Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1901-08-29
Iii The Little Hospital

tentive to everybody. not having been
"a the business long enough to have
grown callous. They were nice girls,
mostly in their first years course, and
their lips would twitch and their
faces whiten very often in the
operating room, Or when they held a
patients hand while he died in the
night. But they were brave and went
about the pretty hospital singing soft
ly in the cool corridors, carrying lit
tie white-clothed trays to the sick
rooms, and being the best of me1i-
cines themselves by reason of their
neatness, their bright eyes and their
kind voices.
Now. one beautiful bright spring
afternoon, at the railroad junction in
the town, two trains, filed with pleas
ure-seekers, smashed together, and
the doctor and the matron ana the
nurses were plunged into a world of
work, for ambulance after ambulance
came driving up from the scene of the
accident and left to the care of the
girls many people sorely hurt. And
among them was very little boy,
about six years old, whom nobody
knew anything about, because his
father and mother were both killed in
the collision, and there was nothing
on them to show who or what they
were, except that they were poor. 1t
is comprehensive that a very great
deal of attention was paid to this lit
tie fellow. and he would have been
placed in the woman's ward, as the
hospital was too small for a children's
ward but the womans ward was full.
So the boy, quite insensible, was laid
on a cot in the mems ward. and next
to him was laid big. brown bearded
man, also insensible, from whose
clothes hal been gathered quite sum
of money and whose few papers went
to show he had been a sailor He was
a very rough-looking man, indeed.
The man came to his senses first,
and it was night. The nurse on watch
was quite frightened at the man. He
was in pain. and great allowance must
be made for that. but never, in all
her life, had the little nurse to listen
to such words as came from the big
to get up and go right away, and he
found he could not move his great,
massive legs. So he began to abuse
his fate, and the railway and the hos
Dital and the nurse and mankind in
general. He was very bitter r-mouthed
man indeed. The little nurse, by the
light of the night lamp. did her best
to soothe him, because he aroused
other patients, and there was a terri
BILE groaning and wailing in the small
ward And all at once the little boy
came to his senses, too, just for a
minute, aid his face was turned up
to the sailors face, and his eyes fell
upon the sailors face. He was not
quite sensible yet for it seemei he
mistook the sailor for his dead papa,
and he said very prettily:
"Good-morning, dad. How are you
.his morning?"
The sailor, looking into the little
fellows eyes, was abashed and stopped
his swearing, and was silent for a
moment. and then muttered clumsily:
I'm all right"
That's nice" said the boy, and be-
came unconscious again.
The sailor did not abuse ANYTHING
any more just then, but lay groaning,
and every now and then whe, the
little nurse slipped by in the shadows,
he called to her SOFTLY and the first
time he said:
Pretty little chap
The nurse nodded and smiled and
the sailor smiled back and until
morning came at last he only groaned
and watched the child, and dill not
curse at all. but every time the nurse
came to wipe his brow or give him
drink, he whispered to her to look at
the boy.
pretty boy-he thought l was his
dad" he said. and would have laughed,
only his pain male him groan in
stead. Again he caught the nurses
hand
"Said it was nice, he did. Cute.
ain't he?" and then his face twisted
in pain.
But neither could the sailor rise
from his back, and neither could the
sailor hope to sail the sea again, for
he was in the same case with the
child and both We're slowly dying. At
first sometimes the big brown man
woul1 forget himself in his pain. and
the nurses would Shut their ears, ter
rified, and the matron would threat
en- to move him to room by him
self, and that frightened him to si-
lence, for ever since the accident he
had a great love for the child The
child would look at his huge friend
in surprise when he fell into one of
his RACES and say:
ooh, John, that's not nice"
AMI John would bite his lips at
once and be patient. Then the child
would say
"How do you feel, John?"
And the sailor would answer:
"First rate. Joe"
+'Thats nice" little Joe would say
and they would lie quiet and look out
of the window at the river and be.