The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1925-07-27
CHAPTER Xiv
The Dance

There might be humiliation and
petty shames, but Chickie loved the
new life; loved it's quick, vivid
throb; it's touch at the warm breast
Of things. She wanted passionately
to succeed; to shine here.
Myrtle said to her: You and ]
won't get by, Bryce, now that AL
berta's got a grudge. They say
she keeps them. What's the use
sticking your face in the books!
Got a quarter? Let's go to a movie. .
Chickie kept her face in the
books. The smart Of her first hurt
remained. For week she was in
despair, believing that her chances
for getting her cap at the end Of the
four months probation were lost
She was stung, too, with remarks
that she overheard and some that
were quite directly made. Norma
Talbot gave her this consolation
What do you care, Miss Bryce
The pretty girls are always the light
weights in the classes. You'll get
by in the wards"
But she soon learned to take rep
rimand gracefully, just as she
learned to stand aside when the sen
ior nurses passed; or to shrug when
Myrtle wore her clothes or hung her
weekly wasA all about the chairs and
dressers.
For there were plenty of compen'
sationS. Each time that Chickie
walked arm in arm with Phyllis
Stone or Margaret Howard-though
1t was merely across the street to
buy a soda, she had feeling OF
almost guilty joy.
These girls liked her-they knew
nothing of her. Sometimes she felt
as light hearted, as free as in the
days when she sauntered down with
Janina or Mary. Why-living in
this house with some eighty other
girls, most of them young like her
self, was as though she were grabbed
back into the sweetness, the care
free, monotonous happiness Of heI
earliest girlhood.
And she could enter far more
readily into the thoughts and the
ideals of these two than she could
those of Myrtle and Sophie Gates.
Phyllis said: Aren't the doctors
wonderful? They work miracles. ~
Chickie agreed.
Myrtle's comment filled her with
a hot anger. Myrtle said: These
brows give me a pain, the way they
pass you by without ever seeing
you as though you were an invisible
microbe! I'll bet they're not above
playing on the outside!
Chickie had all Of the young
nurses awe Of the visiting doctors.
In the very beginning she was
amazed at the attention given to
the patients. She watched the SUI
pervisor going on the ward rounds
1t seemed to her that brightness
like visible magnetism lighted UP
the space about the beds when the
doctors stood there.
There was one in particular who
held. her admiration. 1t was a DR.
RaInm. He was tall, with a sallov
AdSOs very SIIOliSly cut anu Qulel
but searching eyes. They dwell
kindly on each patient. He seemed
to give himself with an utter com
pleteness to his work And this de
tached air gave to his expression
note of spirituality that Chickie
perceived but didn't analyze. Once
she thought: IF I were a man
I would be like that"
And another time she was coming
out Of the treatment room as the
doctor passed. He said Pardon
me-" very courteously as though she
were graduate. 1t filled her with
excitement.
One day there was a blood trans
fusion case. DR.. Ramm was the
surgeon. The probationers on the
ward were allowed tc attend.
Chickie and Phyllis were present