“Yes, of course.” Hamilton didn’t know how the talk had drifted to her.
“Does she know you’ve been wounded?”
Hamilton did not wish to talk about Margaret, but he answered, “Yes and no. That is, I wrote her that I had been slightly scratched by a piece of shell. She doesn’t know how serious it’s been. I was afraid it might give her a shock. She’s such a child. It’s really nothing to worry about, although Dr. Levin said I must take things easy, for a time at least.”
“Poor, brave boy,” said Meadows, shaking her head slowly.
“I suppose it’s my contribution to settling the great war. But you’ve given more, infinitely more, for a woman.”
“Oh, only about two years that I might have spent in dancing, attending teas and receptions, playing the society girl—and I haven’t missed all the receptions, either. It’s all been very fascinating—and hard. I got into the work before we declared war—that is before we declared that a state of war existed.”
“How did you happen to join the Red Cross? You’re not a professional nurse, are you? It must have taken a lot of pluck.”
“I’m almost a graduate, six months from being one. You have to be, you know. But I’m not a professional nurse in the sense that I expect to earn a living at it. You see, I’ve always had a hobby for social service. But when I was studying sociology in college I found that the trouble with the professional sociologists is that they lack technical training. They can make fine reports, but when it comes to showing a mother of six children how to care for a sick child, they fall down. One has to know more, in a practical way, than the manual of home nursing offers.
“I want to be able to go into a home and show a woman how to bathe the babies, how to prepare the bottles, how to make the beds and wash diapers quicker. It’s hardly an aristocratic conception, you see. There are a hundred things like that I’ve learned by nursing.”
“But when did you have time for all this?” Hamilton looked puzzled. “Two and a half years in training, two years over here, and a college course. You look like a college junior.”