Though still believing somebody was walking around the place, the doctor by this time was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, and returned every night for a week. But the sound was a will-o’-the-wisp. He never could catch up with it. He was so eager to exhaust every possibility that he even brought the matter before the board. One of them patronizingly explained that it was probably the echo from some rat in the walls; they were in the habit of dismissing thus lightly the superstitions which clung about the old house.
The doctor continued his detective work until one day he appeared in great good humor. From the rear windows he pointed to the roof which rose beyond the high back wall. “I’ve found it. That stable is built on the same timbers as this house. When some horse grows restless towards morning he stamps and the vibration is carried through them underground to this building. Now do you believe in ghosts?”
Life was by no means so serious as all this sounds. Amelia had followed me into the hospital and we continued our gay times together. For that matter nursing itself often presented amusing aspects. The supply of registered nurses was very small, and in our last year of training we were sent out on private cases, thus seeing both the highlights and lowlights of life, which prepared us well in experience.
One which had romantic overtones took place immediately after Howard Willett had transferred his house-party from Aiken, South Carolina, to Gedney Farms Manor in White Plains. The indisposition of young Eugene Sugney Reynal was pronounced scarlet fever. The contagion began spreading among the guests and servants, and Dr. Julius Schmid, old and honored, a noteworthy figure in the community and also our chief of staff, detailed three of us nurses for service there, practically turning the place into a hospital for five weeks.
My special charge was Adelaide Fitzgerald, Reynal’s fiancée, but as necessity arose we shifted around. Reynal’s condition grew steadily worse. One morning at daybreak when the patient was almost in a coma Dr. Schmid sent for the priest to administer extreme unction, and said to me, “You’d better get Miss Fitzgerald and tell her there’s very little hope.”
She knelt by his bed, “Gene,” she called to him, “Gene, we’re going to be married—right now.”
Reynal was as near death as a man could be, but her voice reached into his subconscious and summoned him back. Another nurse and I, hastily called upon to act as bridesmaids, stood in starched and rustling white beside the bed. It was extraordinary to watch; Reynal seemed to shake himself alive until he was conscious enough to respond “I do” to the priest who had arrived to perform quite a different office.
As an anti-climax to all the excitement, and to my intense disgust, I myself came down with a mild attack of scarlet fever. I was so embarrassed that I went right on working and did not take to my bed until I actually began to peel.
My usual cases offered drama of another sort. Often I was called in the middle of the night on a maternity case, perhaps ten miles away from the hospital, where I had to sterilize the water and boil the forceps over a wood fire in the kitchen stove while the doctor scrubbed up as best he could. Many times labor terminated before he could arrive and I had to perform the delivery by myself.
To see a baby born is one of the greatest experiences that a human being can have. Birth to me has always been more awe-inspiring than death. As often as I have witnessed the miracle, held the perfect creature with its tiny hands and tiny feet, each time I have felt as though I were entering a cathedral with prayer in my heart.