A physician had prescribed a seidlitz powder for a patient I was attending, but I had never given one and did not know how to proceed. I asked the sister superior, and then endeavored to carry out her orders. I took two large tumblers half filled with water and a powder in each. Hurriedly I poured the contents of one tumbler into the other and the effervescing saline ran all over the poor man and bed, while he was making desperate efforts to drink a little. All the men in the ward raised their heads to see the experiment and enjoyed a hearty laugh, while the patient received his prescription and a shower bath, both at the same time.
This was one time in my convent life that I received what I had asked for, in fact, it was just the opposite extreme of what I had been experiencing in my previous Mission. I was on my feet from morning till night, and even for recreation and diversion, I was sent to the kitchen to assist in the work there.
CHAPTER V.
My Begging Expedition.
St. Vincent's Hospital—Routine of a Sister.
During the spring of 1891, the Province of the Sisters of Charity of Providence of the Pacific Northwest was divided, and by an order from the head Mother House at Montreal, the sisters were to remain in the provinces where they were when the division went into effect. I was ordered to report to the Mother House at Vancouver, Washington. This was in March, 1891. On my way to Vancouver from Spokane, I had to pass through Portland, Oregon, and while there the order went into effect, and the sister superior of St. Vincent's Hospital claimed me as a subject of the Oregon Province.
I was at St. Vincent's Hospital about a month, when I was transferred to Astoria, Oregon, to St. Mary's Hospital, where I practiced on typhoid patients and became more efficient in laundry work, for a little over a year.
In June, 1892, I was missioned to St. Mary's Hospital, New Westminster, B. C. My duties in this hospital were practically the same as in the other hospitals I had worked in.
It was while I was at this hospital that I was sent on my principal begging expedition. On July fourth, 1892, Sister Ethelbert and myself were commissioned to go north to the logging camps on the islands in the Gulf of Georgia (near Alaska) to secure contributions in the name of Charity for the Roman Catholic Church and to sell tickets for ten dollars each, which would entitle the holder to care in St. Mary's Hospital, New Westminter, B. C., for a specified time.