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Page 18
"Clinical thermometer--brandy--hypodermic syringe--vial of oxalic-acid
crystals--minim-glass--temperature charts; yes, yes, everything right."
While she was still speaking Miss Douglass, the fever nurse, knocked at
her door, and, finding it ajar, entered without further ceremony.
"Are you in, Miss Searight?" called Miss Douglass, looking about the
room, for Lloyd had returned to the closet and was busy washing the
minim-glass.
"Yes, yes," cried Lloyd, "I am. Sit down."
"Rownie told me you are next on call," said the other, dropping on
Lloyd's couch.
"So I am; I was very nearly caught, too. I ran over across the square
for five minutes, and while I was gone Miss Wakeley and Esther Thielman
were called. My name is at the top now."
"Esther got a typhoid case from Dr. Pitts. Do you know, Lloyd,
that's--let me see, that's four--seven--nine--that's ten typhoid cases
in the City that I can think of right now."
"It's everywhere; yes, I know," answered Lloyd, coming out of the room,
carefully drying the minim-glass.
"We are going to have trouble with it," continued the fever nurse;
"plenty of it before cool weather comes. It's almost epidemic."
Lloyd held the minim-glass against the light, scrutinising it with
narrowed lids.
"What did Esther say when she knew it was an infectious case?" she
asked. "Did she hesitate at all?"
"Not she!" declared Miss Douglass. "She's no Harriet Freeze."
Lloyd did not answer. This case of Harriet Freeze was one that the
nurses of the house had never forgotten and would never forgive. Miss
Freeze, a young English woman, newly graduated, suddenly called upon to
nurse a patient stricken with smallpox, had flinched and had been found
wanting at the crucial moment, had discovered an excuse for leaving her
post, having once accepted it. It was cowardice in the presence of the
Enemy. Anything could have been forgiven but that. On the girl's return
to the agency nothing was said, no action taken, but for all that she
was none the less expelled dishonourably from the midst of her
companions. Nothing could have been stronger than the _esprit de corps_
of this group of young women, whose lives were devoted to an unending
battle with disease.
Lloyd continued the overhauling of her equipment, and began ruling forms
for nourishment charts, while Miss Douglass importuned her to subscribe
to a purse the nurses were making up for an old cripple dying of cancer.
Lloyd refused.
"You know very well, Miss Douglass, that I only give to charity through
the association."
"I know," persisted the other, "and I know you give twice as much as all
of us put together, but with this poor old fellow it's different. We
know all about him, and every one of us in the house has given
something. You are the only one that won't, Lloyd, and I had so hoped I
could make it tip to fifty dollars."
"No."
"We need only three dollars now. We can buy that little cigar stand for
him for fifty dollars."
"No."
"And you won't give us just three dollars?"
"No."
"Well, you give half and I'll give half," said Miss Douglass.
"Do you think it's a question of money with me?" Lloyd smiled.
Indeed this was a poor argument with which to move Lloyd--Lloyd whose
railroad stock alone brought her some fifteen thousand dollars a year.
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