The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-10-18
Et,eningS Story
Hospital Room Fourteen.
BY WILL T. AMES.

Canadian supervisor, found Nurse
Padget coming out of the diet<kitchen
room IA. Nurse said the super
visor in her impersonal military man
ner, you are relieved. Go to the
dormitory now and at 7 report to
Night supervisor Henry. You are to
take Nurse BoJidette's place in the
women's free ward; she is called home
by the sudden illness of her mother. I
will take the tray-who is it for2"
Room IA. Very well. supervisor"
SuperfluouS conversation between
nurses and superiors was discouraged
in the hospital, particularly any dis
cussion of explicit orders. So Nurse
Padget, surrendering the napkin
covered tray, marched like soldier
down the long corridor and the long
stairway and straight to her tiny room
in the detached dormitory.
Evelyn Padget was in the last year
of her training course. As she sat at
her window abstractedly gazing over
the city, spread clean in the morning
light on three sides of Hospital Hill, it
occurred to her that her new detail
carried with it something very like an
honor, for Mazda Boudette was head
nurse in the women's free ward, and a
two-year graduate-and never before
since Evelyn had been in the hospital
had a trainer been left in charge of
any ward, even in an emergency.
II suppose I ought to be grateful to
old McClintock,'' soliloquized the girl.
Then she proceeded to demonstrate
her delight by doing something that
three-year trainers are supposed to be
all thru <with-she began to cry,
quietly but earnestly.
For ten days Nurse Padget had been
taking care of Hugh Morris, other
| wise and professionally designated as
Room Fourteen. Hugh had brought
back from France mixed up with the
muscles of his neck a silver of shrap
nell
| Lately the silver had been acting
queerly, and Morris's doctor had de-
cided that it had best come out of
that before it made serious trouble for
the ex-soldier's vertebrate. So there
had been an operation, with much
| subsequent fussing with bandages, etc,
and with the collateral hunger for cod
| ding which every big boy rnarooned
| on a bed of convalescence experiences.
Ten days is not long in the view
| point of a geoIogist or of an anti
| quarian society. But in the st. Mi
hiel salient. or in the life of lad and
a lass, it can work stupendous
changes. Yesterday Room Fourteen
| had said:
Nurse, do you know whom you re-
mind me of? Well, it's my mother
her picture when she was girl And
he had been very serious and earnest
about it, too. tho as a matter of fact
Evelyn resembled that lopg-gone
mother not at all.
Evelyn's heart had jumped right up
| into her throat when Room Fourteen
said that, for the girl doesn't live who
can't analyze the meaning of this par
| ticular compliment, She had laughed
| lightly and replied, Does that mean
tyou want sugar on your bread and
butter? Well, you cah't have it un-
| less the doctor says so,.'
And she got herself quickly out of
the room with the luncheon things
but in the long, deserted corridor she
| hastily kissed the corner of the nap
kin he had wiped his lips with. e
And now Room Fourteen would be
going out, certainly inside a week
and what chance was there of Bou-
| dette's returning within that time ?
| None, of course. She would not be
\ able to. see him again. The rigid hos
pital discipline would prevent that
and even if this were not SO, how could
a self-respecting girl go throwing her.
| self in a patients way without genu-
inc reasons in the line of duty? If
| only MAZDA Boudette's mother had
| taken some other time to be ill?
| At this thought Evelyn sat up very
suddenly and very straight. Mazda
| had no naotheri She was an orphan
and herself had told Evelyn that she
| had not been on speaking terms with
I her stepmother for two years There
was something queer, then, about this
sudden absence of Nurse Boudette.
| Nurse Padget's little head all at once
became a perfect whifl Of exciting
| speculations. as the result of which.
after she had thought and Thought till
almost noon, Evelyn took her courage
in her hand and went to see the SUI
| pervisor.
At 1 o'clock Miss McCiintock wired
certain Mrs. Georgiana Boudette in
a neighboring state: ~ your illness
| serious enough to require presence of
daughter At 4 came this reply:
Have nc daughter. wouldn't let Ida
| B. touch me if I was dying"
| At 4:30 Miss McClintock. stern and
inquisitorial, sat in her office with
| Nurse Halliburton, the prettiest girl of
the training personnel and the most
troublesome that had ever manag ed to
remain for a third year in that insti-
/ tuition. They had been closeted for
fifteen minutes, and now Miss MeClin-
took was summing up. like a Judge
she said: 80 you admit, nurse that
you knew the patient in room IA by
sight, and-with your usual suscep-
| tbiity-were, as your kind of a. girl
calls 1t, crazy about him; that on
three different occasions you sighted
your own work and tried to induce
Nurse Padget to let you substitute
| temporarily for her-so that you might
| become acquainted with this patient;
| that Padget refused each time; that
on your mutual half day out you and
- u sc bouuStte uiSCuSSeu Nurse rad
| get and your interest in room IA; that
Nurse Boudette declared she did not
/ like Nurse Padget because she was
too fussy and straight-laced,' and
would like to help you get her out of
room As service and get you in; that
1 Nurse Boudette finally announced that
| she had long been determined on an
| extra vacation and that she might as
well go now as later, inasmuch as
| there was a shortage Of graduate
nurses and Nurse Padget would be
sure TO be assigned to her place in the
| women's free and the regular routine
| OF assignments would give you room
"a and the rest of Padget's patients.
Have L stated the case correctly ?''
Tesrfuffy a vSry penitent trainer ad-
nitted the truth of the indictment
Very we'll Go 10 the dornitory. /
Will submit your case to the superin-
Itendnt- Ask Nurge Padget to come to
| me nlea sc