That move Minerva partly checked. She had no wish to be immortalized over the doorway—not to mention on the bedpans and diapers—of a “darkie infirmary.” But even as she graciously declined the offer and the vote of children, she found herself that much more enmeshed in Alice Groves’s toils. Her very refusal of the use of her name had wedded her person to the charity, which was what the administrator had wanted.
Their relations thenceforward were cordial but, on Minerva’s part, guarded. No white woman in River city or Green Prairie had ever managed to “take” her against her will, so thoroughly….
On a Wednesday, as usual, Willis drove across town to the Infirmary punctually at three.
Alice Groves, as usual, stood at the head of the stairs within the dingy building. She was dressed in powder blue, which, Minerva noted, became her. Behind Alice were the usual starched bevies of nurses, drawn up like a company for inspection.
Minerva made panting, reluctant rounds—baby wards and the new operating room (which was a sickening display of shiny things best not thought about, Minerva felt). She drew the line at visiting the adult wards, and there were no private rooms.
“Right after Christmas,” Alice Groves said pleasantly, as they finished the tour and started toward the bright, chintz-draped room where the ‘Wednesday ladies” sewed, “we’re going to start a drive among our own people for fifty thousand dollars.”
“Good heavens! Can you raise anything like that?”
“Perhaps not. It’s the amount we need to buy a little building in the country, for chronics.
There are so many!”
Minerva, headed for the white ladies, was beginning to think other thoughts. “That’s really very enterprising and wonderful—”