Cherry Ames Boxed Set 1-4 Page 9

  There was a gasp from Jim Clayton. She had picked up the wrong forceps again. She had made exactly the same mistake all over again!

  The surgeon’s narrowed eyes, on a level with Cherry’s own, were merciless. “This is inexcusable! Even a student should know an elementary procedure like this!”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Cherry managed to stammer.

  “Yes, you’d be sorry if the infection spread to other patients—” he bit out “—or if the wound became unclean—then you’d be sorry and a lot of help that would be to the patients! Carelessness!” He set his teeth in his impatience, threw aside the screen and ordered the head nurse to tend to Mr. Mills’s dressing.

  Cherry dug her hands into her pockets and clenched her fists hard to keep herself under control. She was shaken and humiliated. Behind her there came a buzz of low masculine voices. The internes apparently were discussing her. She could see Jim Clayton’s troubled brown eyes.

  Miss Craig came up behind her. “It’s four-thirty, Miss Ames. You may sign off duty now. We won’t be needing you any more this afternoon.” Cherry was sure she did not merely imagine the sarcasm.

  Cherry reported off with a heavy heart. She looked about for Ann, but the head nurse kept Ann a while longer. Out in the empty corridor Cherry leaned against the wall. She thought bleakly, “There goes my cap.” Dr. Wylie probably would report her to Training School Office. If he did not, that martinet head nurse would. Cherry wandered down the hall, letting her feet carry her where they would. She found herself, somehow, in Ward 4, standing before Miss Baker’s desk, looking down into Miss Baker’s sympathetic horror-struck face, and telling her what had happened.

  Miss Baker was quiet when Cherry had finished. Then she led her out to the corridor, after nodding to the student head nurse to take over.

  “You poor little probie,” she said. “Of course, you did do wrong, but what beginner wouldn’t with Dr. Wylie watching every move? But, after all, a nurse of all people has to keep her head.”

  “But he needn’t have bawled me out so—so cruelly!” Cherry wailed. At Miss Baker’s first kind word, she had started to feel sorry for herself.

  “Now look here, Cherry Ames,” Miss Baker said. “If you were a surgeon with forty years’practice behind you, and you were worried about your patient, you might be pretty annoyed at a blundering probationer yourself!”

  Cherry’s black eyes grew heavy. Even Miss Baker was going back on her! Cherry knew she was at fault but she was going through a painful ordeal all the same. And just before caps! Her confidence in her ability to be a nurse, her dream of belonging to this profession, seemed to be breaking into bits.

  She glanced up out of her misery to see the student head nurse beckoning to Miss Baker. Miss Baker pressed Cherry’s hand and hurried off.

  “Well, you’ve had quite an afternoon of it!” said Jim Clayton’s voice beside her. Cherry looked up self-consciously at the young doctor. He was not joking, nor teasing her. The sensitive lines of his mouth showed that he appreciated what a torment this was for her.

  “I’ll never get my cap now,” Cherry said dully. “Dr. Wylie and Miss Craig will see to that.”

  “I think you will,” Dr. Clayton said. “I don’t believe that either Dr. Wylie or Miss Craig will report you. They’re not so bad. And they saw how nervous you were. After you left, Cherry, Dr. Wylie said, This rain’s getting on everybody’s nerves.’” Jim Clayton chuckled. “For him, that’s practically a pardon and an apology.”

  “Then there’s still a chance!” Cherry breathed. She noted that this was the first time Jim Clayton had ever called her by her first name.

  “And another thing.” He put his hand lightly on her shoulder. “Don’t let this shake your self-confidence. I know you’re going to make a good nurse. I can see it in you. If Dr. Wylie ever upsets you like this again, say to yourself, ‘Jim Clayton has confidence in me.’”

  Cherry looked up at him with shining eyes. He understood. And he believed in her. She was touched. How did he know how lost and hopeless she felt? As she stood watching him go into Ward 4, she thought, “He does like me! He likes me a great deal. Perhaps it’s more than liking, too.” And with herself, it could easily be more than liking. His hand on her shoulder, even remembered, made Cherry’s heart beat foolishly faster.

  But she had little hope of mercy from Dr. Wylie or Miss Craig, despite what Jim Clayton had said. That was just his effort to console her. To Cherry, those two seemed the coldest and sternest mortals she had ever met.

  The two final weeks before caps were one long worry for Cherry. All the probationers grew tense. Josie Franklin’s nervousness was, for once, not a laughing matter. Bertha becomingly lost weight. Both Vivian Warren and Mai Lee skipped lunch in order to study. Even Gwen did not joke as much as usual. Cherry kept a sharp grip on herself, in her classes and on Men’s Surgical. She did not make any further mistakes, partly because Miss Craig coldly took pains to teach her, and partly because the only further remark Dr. Wylie addressed to her was “Humph!”

  Examinations came along. Classes went on just the same. Cherry had studied hard for the tests, but then, they counted less than one’s general work and character. She knew all her other work to date had been conscientious. She had done the best she could. Or had she? Maybe she had skidded along because Cherry Ames always did pretty well without trying. Dr. Joe had said to her once, “It’s too bad things come so easily for you, Cherry—you believe you don’t have to make an effort.” Now in the last, cold, snowing days before caps, when the probationers went about the hospital with wild looks on their faces and odd replies on their tongues, Cherry thought back to things she had skipped over: charting, for one thing, bed baths, for another. But now it was too late.

  There was another, deeper worry: Had Dr. Wylie or, more likely, Miss Craig reported her? There had been no word from T.S.O. But that proved nothing. All she could do was wait.

  The day for caps dawned with a little weak sunshine but it rained again and snowed a little before noon. Inside the hospital it was warm and busy and friendly, a whole world at work. The older nurses and the internes were gaily planning the forthcoming Fall Term dance, to mark the end of the first three-month term. The probationers were too wretched to talk about the dance, or about anything. Some of them might not be here for the dance, no longer a part of this bustling hospital. No more joking in the tiny kitchens, nor the good sharp smells of medicines and disinfectants, no more familiar maze of corridors and rows of white beds, no more being needed. Cherry realized for the first time, on this final day, how deeply she had grown into the hospital.

  By eleven o’clock word got around among the probationers that Vivian Warren had received her cap—the first probationer to be capped. There were some caustic comments, but Cherry knew all it meant to Vivian and was glad for her. Ann received her cap next, Cherry heard, and rejoiced. By noon Gwen wore the prized cap on her red hair, and a dozen other girls had theirs. Cherry hid her own uneasiness. It was embarrassing at lunch, with some heads self-consciously bearing the foolish, treasured mite of organdie, and other heads still humbly bare.

  Out of the noise of congratulations in the dining room, Ann said casually, “They’re not giving the caps out in any particular order—not grades or merit or alphabetically or anything.”

  “That’s for me,” Cherry thought. She hid her face in her glass as she remembered that, if her old standing of second best in the class still held, she would have had her cap by now. The other probies—and these brand-new, full-fledged student nurses—must be wondering about her. She felt immeasurably lonely. Well, it was her own fault. She should have changed that dressing correctly, no matter how jittery Dr. Wylie made her. She caught Ann’s and Gwen’s reassuring smiles but nothing helped.

  It was even more difficult on the ward. Ann, trying not to look proud, but blushing under her “cream puff,” was pressed with congratulations from old Miss Craig and the nurses and the patients, and was stopped in the hall by unde
rstanding nurses and internes whom she did not even know. Beside her, Cherry felt that her black curls must be conspicuous. As she went about her work, everyone was painfully careful to be kind and not mention caps to Cherry. As if she were thinking of anything else! Once she caught Miss Craig looking at her thoughtfully.

  Two o’clock came and went … Josie and Mai Lee got theirs, Ann told her … three o’clock … three-thirty. And still Cherry was not called. She found it harder and harder to meet Ann’s grave eyes. She heard from a maid that two girls in the other section had left, crying. Everyone must be saying by now that Cherry Ames would be dropped, too. When Mr. Mills called out cheerfully, “Hey, Miss Ames, where’s yours?” she pretended not to hear and fled.

  Three forty-five. Four. Ann tactfully avoided her. Four-fifteen. Four-twenty. Cherry knew now that she would not receive her cap. Dr. Wylie or Miss Craig had reported her after all. Tonight she would be packing, leaving her own little room, leaving the ward and Miss Mac’s class, and Ann and Gwen, and all the great hospital world. She worked blindly through the last few, terrible minutes. All she longed for now was to get off the ward and away from the anxious, sympathetic silence of the nurses around her.

  At four twenty-five Cherry saw Dr. Jim Clayton come in and speak briefly to Miss Craig. He left at once. She saw Miss Craig go to the ward phone and heard her call T.S.O. She could not hear the rest of the conversation, and she did not want to. She could guess what this meant: Miss Craig was probably asking T.S.O. to send her another probationer tomorrow to take Cherry’s place. Cherry saw Miss Craig hang up, as if watching her in a movie.

  “Miss Ames!” the elderly head nurse called. Cherry walked numbly to her desk. “You are to report to Training School Office immediately.” She smiled and Cherry wondered what reason there was left even for that automatic smile.

  Downstairs in the office, Cherry was surprised when the Superintendent of Nurses herself came out of the inner office with a distracted expression on her usually dignified face.

  “Miss Ames, where is your cap?”

  Cherry felt the hot tears starting to her eyes as she had to say the bitter words: “I have not received my cap, Miss Reamer.”

  Miss Reamer frowned and bit her lip. “Will you come in here? I feel very badly that this has happened.”

  “I feel badly myself,” Cherry said very low. “I had wanted so much to be a nurse and now—to fail—perhaps I didn’t try hard enough——”

  “But after all, Miss Ames, you didn’t—Oh, I am so sorry this had to happen!” Miss Reamer drew Cherry in and closed the door to her office. Four observant pairs of eyes were mercifully shut out. Miss Reamer came over to Cherry and smiled at her warmly.

  “My dear child, you haven’t failed! There’s been an unforgivable slip-up somewhere. If we had a capping ceremony, as some other schools do, this could never have happened. Indeed you haven’t failed! You stand second highest in the entire class!”

  Cherry was shaking so, she was not sure she heard correctly. Then Miss Reamer took a snow-white cap from her desk and pinned it to Cherry’s hair. She gave it an approving pat.

  “Congratulations, Miss Ames,” she said. “If you keep up the high standard you have set yourself, you should be one of our finest nurses. You are a credit to the school.”

  Cherry had to grip the edge of the desk, the shock of it all was so sudden. She hadn’t failed! She was still in the school—and not merely that! She was now a full-fledged student nurse. Second highest in the class … a credit to the school … She was so happy that she felt as if she would burst. She groped for words.

  “I—Thank you, Miss Reamer—I’m so glad, so——”

  “Of course you are. And we are too.”

  “I love this hospital.” Miss Reamer nodded. Cherry asked suddenly, “Did Dr. Wylie——?”

  Miss Reamer’s eyes twinkled. “Dr. Wylie does not report on probationers, but he happened to mention to me that you take criticism well. And Miss Craig sent in a very nice report, saying that you make a real effort to learn.” Cherry listened almost unbelievingly and melted with gratitude. They were not ogres—they were only trying to teach and help her! There was no rancor, for the beloved hospital was bigger than any of them. The Superintendent of Nurses said in a softer voice, “Perhaps you did not know that Miss Craig trained at this very same hospital, when it was just one small building and when she was your age. And she had her troubles, too.”

  Cherry felt the tears dangerously near the brink now, so she gasped out, “Thank you!” and escaped. In the hall, she practically fell into Ann’s and Gwen’s waiting arms.

  “Oh, Cherry, I knew you’d get it! I knew there must be a mistake!”

  “But of course, you silly, of course you’d get it—congratulations—look at her in her cap!”

  They hugged each other, and all of Cherry’s misery fell away as if it had never happened. She had her cap! She reached up and gently touched it. Dr. Wylie had actually praised her! Miss Craig had approved her work!

  And Jim Clayton, the darling, had personally gone to her rescue. He did care something about her. She remembered what he had said to her that awful afternoon.

  “You’ll make a nurse, Cherry—a good nurse.”

  He was right. She had won her cap and she would win through till she had the graduate’s broad black velvet ribbon on that cap. This was only the happy beginning. Cherry knew it now.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Emergency!

  MAYBE THE NEW CAP HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH IT. That proud new cap, perched on Cherry’s black curls, with her red cheeks and black-diamond eyes ablaze under it. Maybe it was because Vivian Warren had stood ill-at-ease at Cherry’s door one evening and said, “I want to congratulate you—and to thank you.” Or maybe it was being measured for bibs and students’ striped blue and white dresses, and—glory of glories—those dashing capes!

  At any rate, the next month, December, was one of the happiest Cherry had ever galloped through. Outside, the world froze into a fairyland of ice and traceries in the glistening snow. Inside, the great hospital was busier and gayer and dearer than ever.

  “Where’re you going?” Gwen cried, tumbling into Cherry’s room the evening the class had received its new assignments. Everyone was too excited to study much tonight. Gwen waved a slip of paper. “I’ve drawn Skin—golly, all those smelly ointments!”

  “The sniffy Miss Jones,” Ann teased, coming in behind her. She settled herself in the rocker, remarking, “I might as well sit down while I can. Think of me when you’re snug in your beds. I’ve got night duty.” Ann groaned, but her dark blue eyes shone with satisfaction.

  Cherry passed the box of fudge Midge had made and sent her. When the girls had their mouths full, she broke her own news as nonchalantly as possible. “I’m off to Emergency Ward.”

  They sputtered. “You lucky thing!” Ann cried. “Honestly, did you ever hear of anyone so lucky! The most exciting place in the hospital!”

  And Gwen said rapturously, “Life at first hand! Bus! And all those handsome internes!” She pretended to swoon but not before she had popped another piece of fudge into her mouth. “Life and ambulance bus!”

  Cherry tried to look modest. “Well, life, as you put it, Miss Jones, may turn out to be nothing more exciting than sprained thumbs, but I sort of expect that——”

  Just then there came a warning pounding from the floor. Cherry hastily opened a notebook. Gwen grabbed a physiology book, while Ann strewed papers and pencils around the room. When the house mother opened the door a minute later, she saw three student nurses deeply engrossed in study. Gwen squirmed a little, for she had sat down on the box of fudge.

  The minute the house mother had gone, Cherry stamped on the floor, explaining, “That’s to say thanks to Mai Lee.” Then she climbed up on a chair and hammered on the ceiling. “Marie Swift’s over me.” The girls brought out the fudge, plus a fashion magazine, and—just this one night—ignored such things as physiology in favor of Cherry’s
marvelous luck.

  Emergency Ward was undeniably exciting. Even the appearance of the place was exciting. Situated on the street level of the hospital, it ran the whole length of one wing, and faced a large courtyard where ambulances came screeching up night and day. There were two big wards, Men’s and Women’s, and all around them, a maze of small operating rooms, recovery rooms, and examination rooms. The newest equipment in the hospital was here, including the fabulous Iron Lung. Outside the wards, there were waiting and interviewing rooms, and an emergency clinic. Telephone operators, policemen, ambulance drivers, maids with steam wagons of food, nurses, doctors, patients—people streamed in and out all the time.

  And what people! All ages, sizes, shapes, nationalities, and conditions, some shrieking over a scratch, some carried in broken and bloody from an automobile accident and some telling Cherry their life stories as she struggled to take only their medical histories. It seemed as if the whole teeming life of the city spilled over into the Emergency Ward.

  Cherry remarked on it, during her first few startling days there, to Ruth Schwartz, the E.W. head nurse. Miss Schwartz was young but she had the calm, responsible, unshakeable poise of a matriarch. Her solemn face and brooding eyes, Cherry soon learned, were a “dead pan” for an hilarious sense of humor.

  “If you think this is the best show E.W. can put on,” Miss Schwartz assured Cherry, “wait until the streets freeze over. This ward, you know, has twenty-nine beds. Last winter we squeezed in sixty-nine beds. One side of the room was Medical, the other side Surgical, as usual. It was a regular circus in here. Some of us worked two days and two nights without rest,” she said, with no more ado than if she had said she had coffee for breakfast that morning. She predicted, “Just wait till the streets freeze over!”

  The reception room nurse came hurrying in. “Miss Schwartz! A man out here—probably brain concussion. Hurry!”

  As she calmly sped after the nurse, Miss Schwartz looked back at Cherry with a wry combination of a sigh and a twinkle. “They’ve frozen over!”