“Plenty of time in which to consider so serious a question. First get a good education, and then if you still wish to enter upon that life I will assist you in doing so. From time immemorial nursing has been the field of usefulness peculiarly adapted to women. History’s pages are dotted with the names of heroines in camp, field and plague-stricken districts, in short, wherever the sick and wounded have needed care nurses have lived a life of such unselfish devotion as to have earned the gratitude of millions. We bow our head in reverence to their memory; but we are approaching a practical age in which science and mechanics will be the ruling forces. The time is not far distant when nursing will be a recognized profession, in line with the other educational branches, and expert training an unquestioned necessity. The trained nurse of the future must be an open-eyed, earnest woman with a working hypothesis of a life. She will be keenly alive to the fact that people of culture and refinement into whose homes she may be sent, require an approach, at least, to the same qualities in the one who ministers to their needs. Relations between nurse and patient are peculiarly close and sacred”;—involuntarily Dr. Herschel looked upward toward Hernando’s window—“she will be the recipient of confidences, often enforced, which no true nurse can violate. In short, her influence in any household is almost unlimited for good—or bad. Any nurse who chooses this life with either no conception of the magnitude of the work or from some ulterior motive, must ultimately suffer defeat. You see, Miss Eletheer,” he continued, “that is largely a question of business, with a business woman’s responsibilities. A nurse must be just, loyal and self-sacrificing from an impersonal standpoint, believe in herself, and have perfect control over her emotions. She must ‘take things as they are.’”
Dr. Herschel was a peculiarly gifted man aside from his professional attainments. A natural critic of human nature, wide experience had developed this trait into a seemingly occult power. He had also that tenderness, that charity of the strong for the weak, which constitutes the true man.
“Now here is our young friend’s case. Very likely, to you his punishment seems disproportionate to the offense, and your doubt is a natural one; but finite minds cannot comprehend the Infinite, nor in instances like the present one, see justice. Nature does not specialize,—sin is sin. Sin and punishment spring from the same root. This is true of all the minor events of life; worrying over irremediable ills drains one’s nerve force, and seriously impairs one’s ability for effective work. Up there,” pointing toward Hernando’s room, “is a pattern well worth the consideration of thinking minds. Are Reuben’s energies wasted in bewailing the disaster that has overtaken his charge? No, he is a good business man, using what materials he has to the best advantage.”
“What a cold, hard view of so sacred a calling, and one which takes hold on the basic principles of society,” Eletheer said warmly.
“Nevertheless a correct one. Relative conditions are necessarily complex and, to do good work, the woman must be absorbed in the nurse, and dignify her patient into a case. This means work, hard work, many times drudgery in a trade—I might say, profession—in a world of increasing tendency towards scientific skill, a practical age where all genuine ability will be compensated by an equivalent in dollars and cents.”
Eletheer had opened her lips to speak; but at that instant a black hand raised Hernando’s window, and when it again closed a white flag fluttered there.
Without a change of expression Dr. Herschel arose. He held out his hand to the shrinking girl before him, and in his firm grasp Eletheer gained her first insight into the philosophy of necessity.
CHAPTER IX
IF Dr. Herschel’s courage weakened as he looked into Hernando’s face his expression did not show it. Duty, once plain, had but one road for him, and he had the happy faculty of doing a disagreeable one gracefully. Hernando’s case was simply and truthfully stated to him. He then related his discovery of “Old Ninety-Nine’s” will in the stove at Kingston. In the will, no mention was made of gold, money or jewels, but he bequeathed to his brothers a proven cure for leprosy; as, in his younger days, he had contracted the disease in the West Indies. “Extremely chronic as it is,” said the doctor, “he was not aware of its true nature until in an advanced stage. He speaks of his body as contorted by dry rot, but painless. This is why he kept hidden from sight, believing the Great Spirit angry with him. In a dream his guardian spirit guided him to Shushan to be bitten by a poisonous snake whose venom was an antidote; but, to perfect a cure, he must take vapor baths from the boiling waters of ‘Stinking Spring.’[B] He went to Shushan, allowed himself to be bitten repeatedly by the venomous serpents there, carried out the directions of his guardian spirit, and in less than a year, his body became strong. One foot and three fingers had dropped off.”