“The same with ma maman,” said Elise. “She calls those same taxes robbers. So you make the plan?”
“That’s just it: I don’t,” said Rosanna ruefully. “I wish I could think up some way to earn money, a lot of it ourselves.”
“Let’s do it!” said Helen in her brisk, decided way.
“But how?” questioned Rosanna. “It will take such a lot of money, Helen. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands.”
“I should think the thing to do would be to ask a doctor exactly how much it would cost, first of all,” said the practical Helen.
“Another thing,” said Rosanna, “Gwenny’s family is very proud. They don’t like to feel that people are taking care of them. The Associated Charities gave Gwenny a chair once, so she could wheel herself around, but it made them feel badly, although Gwenny’s mother said she knew that it was the right thing to accept it.”
“She will feel that it is the thing to do if we can pay to have Gwenny cured too,” said Helen. “You know how sensible she is, Rosanna. She must realize that everybody knows that she does all she can in this world for her family. I heard mother say she never saw any woman work so hard to keep a home for her children.
“Mother says she never rests. And she is not trained, you know, to do special work like typewriting, or anything that is well paid, so she has to be a practical nurse and things like that.”
“Aren’t all nurses practical?” asked Rosanna, a frown of perplexity on her brow.
“Trained nurses are not,” replied Helen. “Trained nurses get thirty and forty dollars a week and a practical nurse gets seven or eight, and works harder. But you see she never had a chance to get trained. It takes a long time, like going to school and graduating, only you go to the hospital instead.”