“Brother Peyton, Uncle Tex, Rusty Pete and the rest will gladly have a shoveling roundup and clear away the sand from the windows and doors. It will be a cheerful little room, flooded with sunlight and filled with color and hope and happiness.”
Virginia’s thoughts were interrupted by the return of Winona. “Strange things are happening,” was her immediate remark. “Mrs. Martin had a folder this morning from a hospital training school, and in it Mrs. Martin is asked to send the name of any girl who might wish to take the three months practical nursing course.
“I said that I would gladly take it, and, that there might be no delay, Mrs. Martin called up the hospital on long distance and she was asked to send me at once as one applicant for the term just beginning had been unable to take the work at present.”
Virginia gladly assisted her friend to pack and that very afternoon the Indian girl left the school before the other pupils even knew what was happening.
CHAPTER X
A NEW GOAL
Virginia was alone in her room. It looked barren on the side which had been occupied by Winona’s bright blankets and reed baskets of quaint design. The Indian maiden had begged Virginia to permit her to leave her side of the room untouched, knowing how much the girl from the West enjoyed having about her the things that suggested the desert, but Virg had insisted that Winona would much more need them in the plain white-walled room in the hospital school.
As Virginia glanced around she was conscious of being more homesick than ever. “But four months isn’t an eternity, and I do love it here,” she had just concluded when there came a tapping on her door.
Betsy Clossen’s merry face peeped in through the crack which she had opened. “Are visitors wanted or diswanted?” she inquired.
“We’re improvising words tonight,” Megsy, who closely followed, informed the lonely occupant.
“Yes, indeed, you’re all wanted. Do come right in. I don’t have to study just this minute, and it isn’t well for me to be alone, for if I am long I’m liable to do what my roommate did.”