The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1918-01-23

NA'iV arc lWo ldCtS-OOe OF 4 nurse
and one of a doctor-that Coningsby
Dawson, Lieutenant Canadian Field Ar
tillery, will always remember. lie saw
them during the days re spent in a
hospital in France. He describes them
as follows:
Il arrived about nine on n summers
evening at the Casualty Clearing sta
ton. In something less than an hour
was undressed and on the operating
table. You might suppose that when
for three interminable years such
stream OF tragedy has flowed through
hospital, it would be easy for surgeons
and nurses to treat mutilation and
death perfunctorily. They don't. They
show no emotion. They are even cheer.
ful; but their strained faces tell the
story and their hands have an i'm
mense compassion.
Two faces especially loom out. l can
always see them by lamplight, when
the rest Of the ward is hushed and
shrouded, STOPPING over some silent
bed. One face is that Of the Colonel Of
the hospital, gray concerned, piuful,
stern. His eyes seem to have photo
graphed all the suffering which in three
years, they have witnessed. He's a tall
man, but he moves softly. over his
uniform he wears a long white opera
| ting smock-he never seems to remove
it. And he never seems to sleep, for he
comes wandering through his Gethsem-
ane all hours of TIN night to bend over
the more serious cases. He seems
haunted by a vision of the wives.
mothers, sweethearts, whose happiness
is in his hands. | think of him as a
| Christ in khaki.
THE other face is of a girl-a sister
I ought to call her. She's the nearest
approach to a sculptured Greek goddess
I've seen in a living woman. She's
very tall very pale and golden, with
wide brows and big gray eyes like
! Trilby. | wonder what she did before
she went to warrior she's gone to
war just as truly as any soldier. I'm
sure in the peaceful years she must
have spent lot Of time in being loved
| Perhaps her man was killed out here
Now she's ivory white with over-servicC
and spends all her days in loving. Hel
eyes have the old frank, innocent look
but they're ringed with being weary
Only her lips hold touch of color; they
have a childish trick of trembling wher
anyones wound is hurting too much
She's the first touch Of home that the
stretcher.caes see when they've said
goodby to the trenches. She moves
down the ward; eyes follow her. Wher
she is absent, though others take hel
place, she leaves a loneliness. II she
meant much to men in days gone by
today she means more than ever. Over
many dying boys she stoops as the in
carnation of the woman whom, had they
lived, they would have loved. To al
of us, with the blasphemy of destroy
ing still upon us, she stands for the
divinity Of womanhood.
what sights she sees and wha
words she hears yet the pity she brings
to her work preserves her sweetness
In the silence Of the night those WHIT
are delirious reflght their recent bat
ties. You're half asleep when in tn
darkened ward some one jumps up il
bed shouting, Hold your bloody hand
up He thinks he's capturing a HUI
trench, taking prisoners in a bombed
in dugout. In an instant, like a mothc
with a frightened child, she's bendW
over him; soon she has coaXed his hea
back on the pillow. Men do not die il
vain when they evoke such women