Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-04-14
AMERICAN NURSE GIVES
POIGNANT HUMAN STORY
In Series of Letters Entitled
"Mademoiselle Miss" She Tells
Her Experiences in France

Intimate, holy, comforting things stand
here and there unharmed in the wrecked
villages of France and Belgiun--a cruciflX
still erect n sewing machine. baby's
cradle. This "Mademoiselle Miss
tells of them. But the record, written
while the instruments are boiling in the
sterilizer" is itself one of the most intimate
and holy things which have been saved for
our comfort out of the whirlpool Of em-
battled Europe. We need the message to
keep us sane as we face the horrors of war I:
even more perhaps to show us the horrors
of peace its awful, silent power to paralyze
our facultes-till they are released by the
fight against war, by the struggle To save
life and to Danish despair
What the writer of these letters did for
the wounded in France needs no telling
here. But what her loving care of the
wounded did for her, and might have done
for many of us. her unawakened fellow
countrymen, ] will venture to sum up.
Despite her fourteen hours daily labor
amid the blood and anguish OF the hospital
she begins for the first time in her life
to feel as a normal being should" Why
Because so much new vigor has been born
In her Under the divine pressure Of neces-
sity she becomes inventive as well as COM
petent The We Y tools of her trade are
often wanting, lnsl iratons for construct
ing them "out OF nothing" arise in her.
mother, as well as the nurse, of her charges
Her touch IL ''as light as "A watchmaker's" /:
her strength sufiices TO carry a sick man
in her arms from his bed to the operating
room, and there shall be towel for
every man or | will go undried" But when
at the end of the day she has stuffed cot
ton under all the wary backs and plastered
limbs" she bids all my children good
night" Later she has them propped on
their pillows in anticipation of the Christ
mas tree she has dressed for them. Again
II is one of her children" dragged back
from death by her good nursing. but still
only the wan shadow OF man. who
laughs and tries to clench his fist inside
the dressings u show me how strong he
is"
He laughs-and that too is her inspira-
tion. you can't imagine, | suppose, that
W, laugh and jest all day long, If YOU
can't do that. you may well get out,
for all the good YOU will ever do a wounded
soldier. We ought to be joyous here" (and
she can y "even If men do try to- make
1t a vale of tears; and the more suffering
] see the more think So" How good
the gallant laughter sounds across the
seas Surely something of humanty's best
Is here, not saved from the wreckage but
new born Of the fiery, fertilizing need,
And with the laughter she brings color
and glory too. .shamng our drab. peaceful
lives, THE sun makes gold patches every
where, striking through the trophy Of flags
that l have arranged at the end of the
war, TO the great delight of the children"
But the spirit and gallantry of her SOL
diers, who sit up 10 write patriotic verse
between paroxysms of pain Is not mere
lightheartedness. They teach her grave
lessons too. IF ever ] doubted how to
die, my black pearl-fisher from Guadeloupe
has shown me the way"
i find In these letters some fragment of