CAREFUL OF COLLAR BUTTONS.
Miss Regine White, Superintendent of the Johnston Emergency Hospital,
cut the gory shirts from Colonel Roosevelt and, after he had been
attended by surgeons, tied the hospital shirt, with "Johnston Emergency
Hospital" emblazoned across the front, about him.
Miss White, describing the ex-President's stay in the hospital, said:
"Col. Roosevelt is the most unusual patient who ever was ministered to
in the Johnston Emergency Hospital, in that he was absolutely calm and
unperturbed, and influenced every one about him to be so, although
excitement and unrest were in the very atmosphere, and he was suffering
much.
"Col. Roosevelt had not been in the hospital fifteen minutes before
every one he came in contact with was willing to swear allegiance to
the Bull Moose party, and personal allegiance to, the genial Bull Moose
himself. He was so friendly and cordial, so natural and free, so happy
and genial and so inclined to 'jolly' us all that we felt on terms of
intimate friendship with him almost immediately, and yet through all
this freedom of manner he maintained a dignity that never for an
instant let us forget we were in the presence of a great man.
"It is almost unbelievable that he could have been as unruffled and
apparently unconcerned as he was when he really was suffering, and when
he did not know how serious the wound was."
"GOD HELP POOR FOOL."
"I asked the colonel how he felt about the prosecution of the man who
shot him," said Miss White, "and he said, 'I've not decided yet, but
God help the poor fool under any circumstances!' and the tone he used
was one of kindly sympathy and sincerity, and without one trace of
malice or sarcasm.
"He seemed kindly interested in everything that any one said to him.
Miss Elvine Kucko, one of our nurses, shook hands with him when he was
about to go and said she was sorry the shooting had happened in our
city. The colonel consoled her by saying it might have happened
anywhere. I broke in with a remark to the effect that he would have
felt even worse had it been perpetrated by a Milwaukeean, and that we
were glad it was a New Yorker who did the deed.
"'You cruel little woman!' the patient ejaculated, and I remembered
then that New York was the ex-President's state."
When he was ready to go, Miss White offered him a sealed envelope and
told him his cuff buttons, shirt studs and collar buttons were in it.
"No, you can't do that with me," he said, "I want to see! I don't
intend to get down to Chicago without the flat button for the back of
my collar."
Miss White joined him in a laugh as she pulled open the envelope and
counted each one separately into his hand. That flat bone button that
he treasured hid itself under one of the others and he had to have a
second count before he was satisfied that he was not going to be
inconvenienced by its loss when he should next care to wear a collar.
Doctors and nurses questioned the ex-President's coat being warm
enough, but he assured them that the coat was one he had worn in the
Spanish-American war, that it was of military make and would keep him
warm enough in a steam-heated Pullman.
When the bandages were being strapped on the colonel's chest to keep
the dressing in place, one of the doctors, Fred Stratton, a young
giant, didn't put one fold as Miss White thought it ought to be. She
ordered it put right, and the colonel began to laugh, which isn't to be
wondered at when one remembers that Miss White is a tiny, wee bit of
fluffy humanity who doesn't look a bit like what one would expect, the
superintendent of a big hospital and looked a pigmy beside the big
doctor.
[Illustration: Page Two of Letter Found in Schrank's Pocket.]
"That's nothing," said Dr. R. G. Sayle, "she's been bossing us doctors
for the past twenty years!"
"Oh, please--not quite that long----" began Miss White.
"Well, we'll knock off two and make it eighteen," the colonel
interposed.
When the wound was dressed doctors and nurses tried to persuade the
patient to remain over night, but without success.
"I know if Mrs. Roosevelt were here she would insist upon your
staying," Miss White said.
"Young woman, if Mrs. Roosevelt were here I am certain she would insist
upon my leaving immediately," her husband made reply, and gazed at the
four pretty nurses surrounding him.
When the patient was brought up the elevator and led into the
"preparation" room, the first thing to do was to prepare him for care
of his wound. Miss White took his eye glasses. The Colonel objected and
said he did not want those out of his sight. But when Miss White
assured him she would give the glasses her personal attention he seemed
content with the arrangement.
One of the physicians asked for a chair for Col. Roosevelt. Miss White
said the operating table was ready, and the colonel immediately
acquiesced and laid down on the carefully scrubbed pine slab on an iron
frame, which has carried the weight of tramps, laborers and other
unfortunates picked up in the street, but never before that of an
ex-President of the United States.
Miss White was a little diffident about exposing the fact that the
president had said a swear word, but she finally admitted that he
remarked:
"I don't care a d----n about finding the bullet but I do hope they'll
fix it up so I need not continue to suffer."
The doctors washed the wound area, painted it with iodine, itself a
somewhat painful operation, and proceeded to the dressing.
One of the doctors told Col. Roosevelt that Miss White was a
suffragist, and that after his kind treatment he ought to be converted.
Miss White said the Big Bull Moose was a suffragist and that was one of
the big planks of his party and the colonel laughed and said of course
he believed in it.
When the party left for Chicago Dr. R. G. Sayle took with his
antisepticized surgeon's gloves, surgical dressing and instruments to
be used in case of hemorrhage before Chicago was reached.
Not a souvenir of the ex-President's visit remains in the hospital. His
shirt was turned over to the police, and a blood-soaked handkerchief
which was bound upon the wound, and which was picked up by one of the
nurses, was found to have an "S" in the corner, so it was evident that
it either did not belong to the ex-President or he had not always owned
it, and this was discarded.
The Mercy Hospital nurses were appreciative of Col. Roosevelt.
"He was the best patient I ever had," said Miss Welter, and the
sentiment was endorsed by Miss Fitzgerald.
"He was consideration itself. He never had a word of complaint all the
time he was at the hospital, and his chief worry seemed to be that we
were not comfortable. We had expected to find him 'strenuous' and
possibly disagreeable. On the contrary, we found him most docile. He
chafed at being kept in bed, but he tried not to show it, and he never
was ill-humored or peevish, as many patients in a similar position are."