We arrived at our destination on July 28th, at one o'clock in the morning. The institution which was to be my new home, was a small hospital, which could accommodate about sixty patients.
The next morning, Mother Nazareth and my new superior, Sister Mary Vincent, assigned me to my new work. I was to serve in the dining-rooms—including the priest's—wash dishes, take care of the halls, the sister's community room and the priest's apartment, and to do the work that would be necessary in and about the building. Then, to make everything more "pleasing" for me, they told me that in the near future I could go begging as I had done in my younger years. To this, I told them that I would go, providing that I could be home every night, as I did not think I was physically able to be out nights as I had in years past.
This was all for the benefit of my health, and this same Mother Nazareth, who was helping the superior assign me to my work, was the one that told me the change was for that purpose.
After years of struggle and convent slavery, endeavoring to make myself efficient in nursing, this the reward. If I had not been strong and robust, I could never have lasted as long as I had. The average girl in this drudgery goes years before she reaches the age I was at that time. But the years of grind and confinement had begun to tell on me, and the heads of the institution—sly old foxes—could see it; so I had to go.
"Authority intoxicates,
And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud and vain;
By this the fool commands the wise,
The noble with the base complies,
The sot assumes the rule of wit,
And cowards make the brave submit."
—Butler.