FIRST AID
Next morning Lucy began the day, as she often liked to do, by going
into her mother's room for a talk before breakfast. Mrs. Gordon was
standing in front of the dressing-table and Lucy sat down near her in
her favorite position, her hands clasped about one knee.
"Well, what is it this morning, daughter?" asked Mrs. Gordon, smiling
at Lucy's thoughtful face, and with an approving glance at her
smoothly brushed hair and the fresh white collar on her serge dress.
"What a pity you cannot stay as tidy as that all day," she added, for
occasionally Lucy appeared after a busy hour with a wild look to her
hair and clothes which disturbed her mother extremely.
"Yes, isn't it?" said Lucy, smiling back. "I am a little neater lately
though, Mother, you said so yourself. But here's what I want to know.
Our first-aid class begins to-day--you haven't forgotten it? And after
Marian's almost fainting yesterday, even though she did act so bully
afterward, what do you think about her joining? I'm going to be worried
half the time about her."
Mrs. Gordon turned from the dressing-table to look at Lucy as she
answered, "I want her to join. Never mind whether you feel nervous
about it or not. You know I told you it was not going to be an easy
task to make Marian so well and strong as you are, but you have
succeeded far better than I hoped. I shall be very much disappointed if
Marian doesn't take part in that class. There is everything in it she
needs--companionship, work, competition--and you know how quick she is
to learn. I don't feel at all afraid that it will be too hard for her.
She is able to do a lot if she is interested."
"Yes," nodded Lucy, "I knew you'd say that, Mother, so I didn't bother
deciding it for myself."
"She wants to join, doesn't she?"
"Yes, rather. I can make her like it, once we get started."
"Of course, it would be easier, Lucy, to let Marian alone, to do things
or not as she happens to like," Mrs. Gordon went on, "but that wouldn't
be doing her any service, or Cousin Henry either. He wasn't satisfied
to see Marian a frail, listless little shadow of a girl. It has made
him thin and anxious himself in the years since her mother died, but I
think he hated forcing her to do anything she did not want to."
"I think he did, too," said Lucy, looking up with a responsive nod.
"It's a lot of help to talk things over with you, Mother. I do get
muddled sometimes. I don't see what any girl does without a mother to
go to, even if her father is as kind as Cousin Henry."
"What's this?" asked Major Gordon's voice from the door. "Something
hard about a father? This one would like his breakfast in about two
minutes, if the conversation is over."
Marian's consent to join the first aid and home nursing class had only
got as far as saying she would try it once, but that was all Lucy
wanted for the present. The class was to meet at the Matthews' the
first time and then at the house of each member in turn every Saturday
morning. Mrs. Matthews had engaged a nurse from the New York Hospital
to give the course, after the repeated begging of Anne and the other
girls for her to follow up the suggestion she had made a month before.
Some of Lucy's guests of the previous day were too young to take the
course, but the class numbered eight members, ranging in age from
fourteen to sixteen.
When Lucy and Marian reached the Matthews' at nine o'clock, most of
them were already there, seated in the small room to the left of the
hall, with Miss Thomas ready to address them. She was a slim, athletic
looking young woman with curly red hair and a bright twinkle in her
eyes. When her whole class was before her she began to speak without
preamble.
"Instead of giving you the whole course in first aid and then the home
nursing, I am going to devote half of the morning to each," she said,
laying down a little pile of books on the table before her.
"I warn you, girls, there is a little studying to be done in connection
with this course, but it isn't very tedious, and I know you are here
to do things in earnest. The first half of the morning while you are
all fresh and feel restless we will have our nursing, and then I think
you will be more ready to sit still for my talk on first aid. So if you
will show me to a bedroom, Miss Matthews, we will begin at once."
Anne led the way up-stairs to her own room, where Miss Thomas, with an
energetic quickness that won Lucy's instant approval, began pulling the
neatly made bed to pieces.
"Now, let's see you make that up comfortably for an invalid," she
directed, nodding to Julia. "You, Miss Matthews, prepare a bedside
table, with water, spoon, medicine glass, thermometer, and whatever
will be wanted for the doctor's visit. This is, of course, just
experimenting to see how much you all know of the elements of nursing.
Now, I want a patient. You, please," she decided, pointing after a
swift glance around at Marian, who shrank back quite visibly at the
command.
"Oh, you mustn't mind anything," Miss Thomas reproached her, with a
pleasant, reassuring smile. "I expect every girl to be ready and eager
to do her part. Sit down on that chair, please, Miss--Leslie, while
this young lady here takes your pulse. You," she nodded in Lucy's
direction, "please bring the thermometer and take her temperature.
We want to find out all we can about her condition before the doctor
comes, and if she has any fever she must wait for his arrival in bed."
Marian sat down, looking rather doubtful about the whole proceeding,
though Lucy whispered in her ear as she stuck the thermometer under
her tongue, "Don't mind--we'll all have to do it." Playing invalid
was not yet much of a joke to Marian, whose ill-health had been until
lately the most important thing in life, and, for a moment, her
thoughts returned to the old, trying days of her illness as she held
the thermometer in her mouth while Hilda Lee felt her pulse with great
intentness, her eyes glued on the second hand of Miss Thomas' watch and
her lips rapidly moving.
"Good gracious," she exclaimed suddenly, letting fall Marian's hand
and rising excitedly to her feet, "Miss Thomas, her pulse is a hundred
and ten!"
"Really?" asked Miss Thomas, smiling quite serenely. "What is her
temperature, Miss Gordon?"
Lucy was at the window, trying to find the elusive red streak on the
thermometer, and now she declared with an air of relief after Hilda's
announcement, "It's normal. Just at the little arrow."
"But what's the matter with her pulse, Miss Thomas?" Hilda insisted.
"It should be around eighty, shouldn't it?"
Marian was looking alarmed herself, and still sat anxiously on her
chair, as though her strength might fail her. Miss Thomas laughed and
went over to her side.
"It's nothing but a little excitement, because she knew her pulse was
being taken," she explained. "You're quite all right, Miss Leslie, and
you did very well. Now, Miss Houston, suppose we say that you are a
patient who has been ill several weeks. Just slip off your pumps and
lie down on the bed. Let's see if Miss Gordon can raise you comfortably
to give you a drink and help you to turn over. Act very helpless and do
nothing for yourself."
Julia obeyed and Lucy, putting a strong arm behind her shoulders,
raised her vigorously to a sitting position.
"Oh, you are a little too energetic," said Miss Thomas. "That would
hurt any sore muscles outrageously. Try again. Raise her firmly but
more slowly."
This time Lucy lifted Julia as tenderly as a basket of eggs, and
breathed a sigh of relief when it was done, for Julia made herself
as heavy as possible, and looked the most helpless invalid out of a
hospital.
"You try it now," said Miss Thomas, nodding to Mabel Philips, "and this
time arrange her pillows with your other hand before letting her lie
back."
Marian was standing by the bedside, her uneasiness about herself
forgotten as she watched Julia, and Miss Thomas reached out a steady
hand and felt her pulse.
"It's all right now," she nodded to Marian with a smile. "Not more than
eighty-two. You mustn't let it fool you that way. It's possible to
become quite ill if we think we are. When you're in doubt as to how you
feel, decide right away that you are quite well, and more than likely
you will be."
"What, can you really feel ill because you think you're going to?"
asked Marian incredulously.
"Some people can, especially those who have had trying illnesses. The
best thing for every one in the world is to obey the laws of health
and then think no more about feelings."
"Yes, you can often help yourself to get better by just not giving in,"
remarked Mabel.
"Not when you have a toothache. You can't forget that," said Anne
thoughtfully, at which every one laughed. One toothache was the only
sickness Anne had ever suffered from since her whooping-cough days.
The whole class was listening to Miss Thomas, who spoke so particularly
to Marian, because her keen eyes had seen and understood much of the
little invalid's life history in the short while that she had watched
Marian's pretty, sensitive face, where the delicate color came and went
with such quick changes at the least disturbance.
"We haven't accomplished very much this morning," she said at last,
turning back to the others, "because I was only trying to see where we
were and how I had better start. We will go through the regular nurse's
program next week. Now, if you will come down-stairs, I will give you a
little talk and assign you lessons in the first-aid manual."
"Go on, you husky invalid," said Lucy to Julia, giving her former
patient a jog in the back as they filed out of the room. "You nearly
broke my arm."
"Well, you always say you like hard things to do," responded Julia
laughing, "so I thought I'd give you the chance. I like being the sick
person," she added. "I hope she chooses me again."
"I know something about bandaging, when we come to that," said Lucy.
"Elizabeth taught me. You sit with me, Julia. Marian is with Anne, so
she is all right."
Lucy glanced along the row of girls and saw with pleasure that Marian
showed a great deal of interest in the talk which followed. When the
lesson had been given out at the end and the girls rose to go, Marian
took her book from Miss Thomas with a friendly smile such as she seldom
accorded to strangers. The three girls walked home together as far as
the Gordons' and Julia said, as they discussed the morning's work:
"Isn't she a nice, jolly person? I don't mind doing anything she asks
me to do."
"Yes, isn't she nice?" agreed Marian. "She'd make you feel better as
soon as she came in the room to nurse you. I think I'll like it as soon
as I get it through my head a little," she added, doubtfully. "I don't
know even as much about it as the rest of you."
"You must know precious little," said Julia. "I can hardly wait to see
what the lesson is. I bet it's hard, from what she said." They had
neared the Gordons' house and Julia turned to cross the grass. "I'm
too hungry to go any further with you. Good-bye, till this afternoon!"
At lunch Lucy and Marian gave an interested account of the morning's
doings, and Marian eagerly described the extraordinary conduct of her
pulse and Miss Thomas' words, which she had taken very thoughtfully.
Mrs. Gordon listened with a little of her attention diverted to the
new house-maid who had arrived only the night before and seemed not
very certain where to find the plates and spoons as they were wanted.
But she felt a very real satisfaction that Marian had liked the class
and was anxious to continue it, and she watched her comfortably eating
chicken hash and rice with the feeling that health and the pleasures
belonging to it were nearer to the motherless girl than they had ever
been before.
"We're going to have a snow-storm before night, children," remarked
Major Gordon, as they rose from the table, "so don't wander far out
on the prairies this afternoon." The Major had spent much of his home
service in the West, and the restricted limits of this island post were
always a subject of mild amusement to him.
"I have to wander over my Latin lesson before I do anything else," said
Lucy, resignedly. "Let's go up-stairs and get it done, Marian. I keep
my school papers safely out of reach since Happy chewed up my French
composition. Yes, he did, William, so you needn't look offended."
"But he's only chewed your things once, Lucy. Most of the things he's
eaten were mine," protested William, putting up a defense which made
everybody laugh.
"All right. I didn't mind much," said Lucy. "I like him just the same."
When Marian and Lucy had left the room, Major Gordon came back from
the hall, cap in hand, to say to his wife, "Sally, have you noticed a
change in Marian lately--how much livelier she seems?"
Mrs. Gordon laughed. "Have I noticed it, James! Lucy and I have been
doing our best to bring it about for the past two months. She actually
enjoys going around with other girls now, and the effort has been a
good thing for Lucy, too. You know, Marian has the making of a very
fine and accomplished girl under her drawback of ill-health. Don't you
think she has grown to be a very pleasant little guest?"
"Not only that, but she looks so much stronger, and she has some color
in her cheeks. I hated to see her as thin and white as she looked in
the summer. I didn't wonder Henry was afraid to leave her. She's gained
at least ten pounds, I'm certain--though she hasn't had many luxuries
here."
"I don't know," said Mrs. Gordon thoughtfully. "It's luxury to have a
home and friends her own age, after having lived principally in hotels
and on shipboard for so long. I don't think she has known what home is
since her mother died. When she gets back her health--you remember what
a bright, jolly little thing she was years ago, James?--I know Marian
will want to open up that big Long Island house and live there. She is
the only one left to make a home for her father, and with a little more
self-confidence she is quite smart enough to do it."
"Aren't you rushing things a little?" inquired Major Gordon genially.
"Henry would be a bit surprised at the idea."
"I hope he will be more surprised when he sees her," said Mrs. Gordon,
smiling. "Don't stay too long at Headquarters," she added, as her
husband moved toward the door. "It's Saturday, you know."
The Major jerked his head in the direction of the parade, where squads
of recruits were tirelessly drilling in the cold wind. "It's also war
time," he remarked, stopping to tickle Happy's ears as he came racing
up the steps.
Lucy and Marian had gone up-stairs and plunged into their Latin, so as
to finish with it as soon as possible. It was not a popular study with
either of them, and translation, of which Miss Ellis seemed especially
fond, was Lucy's bugbear.
"How far have you gone, Marian?" she asked after twenty minutes'
silence. "'The queen will fight?' I don't believe she will, anyway--why
should she? Aren't these the silliest sentences?"
"She has to fight because we know so few verbs," said Marian, laying
down her pen to stretch, "unless you want to make her dance or sing."
Lucy sighed and went on to the next line: "'The slaves were wounded
with spears and arrows.' I guess it wasn't a pacifist who wrote this
book."
"Letter, please," said a timid voice at the door, and the new maid
handed an envelope to Marian, whose "Thank you" sounded so pleased that
Lucy decided the letter was from her father.
Lucy's eyes left her book again to follow the little maid out of the
room with a friendly interest. She was a Belgian girl, whom Mrs. Gordon
had engaged in New York, where she had just landed from England. She
had spent the last two years in London and learned there to speak
English pretty well, but before leaving her own country she had
undergone danger and privations which still lingered vividly in her
memory. Margaret had already confided to Lucy that she had spent most
of the evening before in listening to Marie's story. "It's enough to
give you bad dreams to hear her,
[Illustration: "LETTER, PLEASE", SAID A TIMID VOICE]
"Miss Lucy," she said feelingly. "Sorry as I am for the poor
girl."
No trace of Marie's memory of the war showed in her face, but a certain
quiet gentleness in her manner made her seem older than her years. She
was a quick, neat-handed little thing who could sweep and dust to Mrs.
Gordon's liking, and had already won William's respect by the number
of games she knew how to play, most of them involving as much running
and skipping as he liked. Lucy was forgetting her Latin to wonder how
it would feel to be driven brutally from her own country, leaving it
invaded and ruined, and if she could have faced it with little Marie's
quiet courage. A sudden joyful exclamation from Marian interrupted her.
"Lucy, what do you think? Father is going to Montreal, and will come
here right afterward. He leaves for Canada next week, so he will
probably be home before the first of January. A month isn't so awfully
long, is it? And it may be less." Marian was sincerely devoted to her
father, and the joy in her face was pleasant to see.
"Oh, I'm so glad, Marian," cried Lucy warmly, "but I don't want you to
go away a bit--will you have to?"
"I don't know. Father says he may have to go back West. I don't want to
leave here, either, Lucy. It's just that I will be so glad to see him
again." She turned back eagerly to the letter. "I must see what else he
says."
Mr. Leslie had written of the overwhelming rush of work in the lumber
camps and of the necessity for his making a trip to Canada to unite
his interests with those of some owners of Canadian forest land. The
British Commission had brought valuable suggestions to the Government
ship-building scheme, and he wished to make his supplies useful to the
utmost possible extent.
Marian's father had a world-wide experience in other beside business
ventures. His frank and attractive personality had won him friends
in many countries and, with a keen mind and a large fortune at his
command, he had grown to be a man of wide influence in public life.
Marian knew that her father had friends among the Allied Commissions
and was not surprised at his accompanying the Britishers into Canada.
He was never willing to do his work except most thoroughly, and no
distance was too great for him to travel if his purpose could better be
served by going.
"I must show this to Cousin Sally," said Marian, when she had finished
the letter. "Just one more sentence and I'll be done." She went back to
her Latin, and in another few moments put down her pen and gathered up
her papers. "How nearly through are you, Lucy? I'll go down and find
Cousin Sally."
"Just a minute," murmured Lucy, searching for an elusive verb. "Oh, I
see it now. Take your things down with you, Marian. We're going out,
aren't we?"
"All right," called Marian from her room. "I'll bet it's cold," she
added with sudden foreboding.
Left alone, Lucy scrambled through the last of her lesson and slammed
the book shut with relief. "No more of that till Monday," she thought,
pushing the book out of sight under a sofa pillow and going to the
closet for her coat and tam-o'-shanter. Remembering her mother's early
morning remarks, she stopped in front of the glass to put on her tam,
and pushed some stray locks of hair up under it instead of pulling it
on her head as she went out of the room. She left the closet door open
and the ink-bottle uncorked, but then she was preoccupied in thinking
of Mr. Leslie's return and hoping he would be delayed for another
month, until Marian's growing activity had brought her still nearer to
health.
Down-stairs she found her mother rejoicing with Marian over the good
news and reading the letter aloud.
"Oh, I wish he could get here for Christmas, Cousin Sally," Marian
exclaimed, when Mrs. Gordon had finished. "He is always so nice
about giving things that I've never even asked for." Christmas this
year seemed far more interesting than it had ever been before Marian
had cousins to share it with, and the presents she had accepted
heretofore with listless thanks and little appreciation held great
possibilities for pleasure this year, if the Gordons could enjoy them
too.
Christmas for Lucy and her mother did not seem very merry, and Marian's
words wakened more sad thoughts than bright ones for the moment in
their hearts. It would be the first Christmas in Lucy's lifetime that
Bob had not been home. Even in his plebe year at West Point he had
worked hard enough to get two days off and had come home in a blinding
snow-storm. It seemed dreadful to Lucy to celebrate gayly without
him, and only her mother's reminder that William ought not to be so
disappointed had made her look forward to Christmas with any real
interest. The part she had most enjoyed was getting a big box sent to
Bob a week ago, with every good thing in it that she could remember he
liked, or that bore any reasonable chance of reaching there in eatable
condition. She had made five pounds of fudge, standing over the stove
until Margaret exclaimed in alarm at her hot, flushed cheeks, and came
to take the spoon out of her hand. But the fudge was good, and so was
everything else that went in the box, and if only Lucy could have taken
it over to France herself and handed it safely to Bob she would have
been satisfied.
She was on the point of saying now, "I wonder if Bob will get that box
all right," but she checked herself abruptly and said, instead, "Come
on, Marian, if we wait any longer it will be cold and horrid outdoors.
Let's go now."
"I wouldn't go far; it really looks like snow," remarked Mrs. Gordon,
drawing aside the curtain.
"We won't, Mother. Perhaps we'll only go as far as Julia's," said Lucy,
winding a muffler about her neck.
Marian was already wrapped in cloth and fur, and the two girls went
outdoors and crossed the grass toward the Houstons', where the rising
wind whipped at their clothes and almost lifted Marian off her feet,
while she shrieked and clung to Lucy, alternating between fear and
laughter.
"I guess we won't go out on the sea-wall to-day, said Lucy; "unless you
especially wish to?" she added with a funny look.
"Br-r-r!" said Marian, shivering at the thought. "Why doesn't every one
live in the South, I wonder? What's the use in having cold ears and a
frozen face, and being nearly blown off your feet? I'm sorry for that
sentry."
"Why, this isn't really winter yet--it's only cold for November,"
said Lucy, encouragingly. "Oh, Governor's Island is a nice, sheltered
spot in mid-winter. It's not so cold as Fort Russell. There it's
nearly always below zero. The only warm post we've ever been was at
Fort McPherson, Georgia, and I was so little then I didn't appreciate
it. Let's go right in. I can't wait while they answer the bell," she
declared on the Houstons' door-step. "Julia won't mind."
Once the three girls were sitting comfortably in Julia's room nothing
could tempt Marian outdoors again for a walk, and there they stayed
until it grew dark and Lucy reminded her that the only way to get home
was the way they had come. Julia loved cold weather, and was always
amused at Marian's aversion to it.
"Somehow it makes me feel lively and jolly. I can do twice as much now
as when it's hot," she said to Marian, as she helped her on with her
coat.
"Well, I hate it, and the most you can expect of me is to go out in
it. You can't expect me to like it, for I just don't and won't," said
Marian decidedly. "Thanks, Julia, I can do the rest myself," she added,
smiling at her own earnestness, for she was learning from Lucy the
great art of laughing at herself.
"Well, I hope you make the long, perilous journey safely," said
Julia, taking her guests down to the door and looking across the grass
at the lights of the Gordons' house. "I seem to see a light in the
distance, so have courage."
"Good-night," said Lucy, laughing as she closed the door.
They were blown most of the way home, so it was not much effort to
walk, as Marian remarked from the depths of her fur collar. The snow
that Major Gordon had predicted was falling in scattered flakes, but
the wind had risen to a gale and blew with piercing cold on their faces.
It was a hard night for the sentries on duty along the sea-wall on the
windward side of the post, where the blast beat with full force upon
them and the waves lashed the rocks below. Captain Evans came in to the
Gordons' after dinner. He was officer of the guard and had just made
his nine o'clock tour of inspection, the last until one in the morning.
He told of his wind-blown walk about the island, after which he had
ordered the sentries frequently relieved during the night.
Lucy usually rather liked these wild autumn and winter storms, and had
enjoyed going to sleep with the windows rattling and the wind whistling
around the house, but at bedtime she said soberly to her mother, when
Mrs. Gordon came into her room to say good-night:
"I hope Bob has a stove or something. I know they probably aren't
having a storm over there, but I hate to get into nice, warm covers and
not be sure he has enough."
Her words, and the anxious affection prompting them, were the echo of
her mother's inmost thoughts, but Mrs. Gordon could not say anything
just then in answer. She only tucked her daughter carefully in bed, and
kissed her good-night.