Distress showed in Virginia’s face. “I am going there and see if I can help,” she cried, and with a parting smile at Miss Knight she hurried to the Dispensary.
Doctor Jackson nodded to her as she entered. “Every degree that the temperature rises means more sick babies,” he worried.
The peevish, fretful cries of the infants and the troubled looks of the worn mothers filled the girl with pity. “How dreadful, Doctor. The poor darlings. I wish I could help them,” she said.
The medical man glanced at her with new interest. “Miss Dale, didn’t you give that concert at the Lucinda Home?” he asked.
When she answered him in the affirmative he came over to her. His duck suit was rumpled and his collar wilted. His hair was mussed where he had mopped it back. In his hand was a clinical thermometer and an odor of drugs surrounded him. “Miss Dale,” he urged, “why don’t you get up a picnic and take these mothers and babies into the country for a few hours? You entertained the old ladies but you would save lives if you could arrange to get some of these babies into a cool place for awhile.” He became apologetic. “I don’t mean to be insistent but I am interested in my work and if I can keep any of them from dying in this heat spell, I want to do it. You understand me, don’t you?”
“Indeed I do, Doctor Jackson. I will be only too glad to get up a picnic.” A note of anxiety crept into her voice. “There isn’t much time to prepare. If it is to do good, we must have it at once.”
“Tomorrow, by all means,” urged the physician. “Let’s go to it.”
His enthusiasm filled her with energy. “It will be dandy,” she cried, her eyes sparkling with pleasure. “It will be difficult to arrange for, but we can do it.”
The young medical man gave this pretty girl, flushed with interest and confidence, a look of frank admiration. “That’s the ticket,” he shouted, tossing professional dignity to the winds for the moment. “You can make things hum. Hop to it, kiddo.” Then more seriously, “Let me know late this afternoon the arrangements you have made. Call me by phone. I’ll get word to the mothers if I have to carry it myself this evening.”
Virginia’s head was awhirl with vague plans when she left the hospital.