Hurricane Nurse (10 page)

Dr. Ward opened the door just then. "Maggie?" he said, much as if he always said that on opening doors. Then, seeing Donna, he added, "Miss Ledbury, I'm glad you came by to see my girl. She enjoys company and, I'm sure, especially yours. You'll stay and have lunch with us, won't you?"

Again she refused. "No one knows where I am and I'm supposed to be in the office where I can give first aid when needed. But thank you. I'll drop by again."

Poague was awake and sitting on the edge of his cot. "I'm dizzy," he was complaining, "and my head aches something fierce."

Cliff wasn't particularly sympathetic. "The dizziness is loss of blood. It leaves a man weak. The headache's pretty well to be expected after all the drinking you did last night, wouldn't you say?"

Donna, standing in the doorway, asked a practical question. "Did you bring food with you yesterday, or only whiskey, Mr. Poague?"

The question didn't embarrass him. "Bread and some eggs, if that devil Vickers hasn't latched onto them."

Donna nodded. "I'll get them. You should have something to eat."

Cliff straightened up from lighting a flame under a pot of soup. "I'll get it. You don't want to go in there where they're playing cards." He grinned. "Or I don't want you to."

"I'll be just as happy here," she agreed.

Vickers hadn't done away with his erstwhile friend's supplies, and when Cliff returned, Donna poached an egg and made toast for the injured man. He ate hungrily, and settled himself once more for sleep. Cliff poured the canned soup he had been heating into paper cups and passed one to Donna. "I seem to get hungrier when I'm not busy. There's plenty more when you've drunk that. Where have you been since we brought the Hartsons in?"

She looked about her, surprised that she had not thought of her last night's patients since she had gone to tend Sammy Worth. "Where are they? What did you do with them? I thought they'd be here."

"Mrs. Hartson—Missy—will be a lot more comfortable not in the room with our friend there. We put them in Fincher's office. That way, you'll just have to cross the hall to look after them both." He put down his cup and gazed moodily at it.

"I have another patient, one that scares me more now than either of the others. Do you know the Worths?"

He frowned, then shook his head. "I don't think so. What's their trouble?"

She told him about Sammy. "The thing that bothers me is that I don't know what's the matter with him. He's been playing with all the other children, too, so we may have the beginnings of an epidemic right here."

"That can't be helped," he said. "I only hope it isn't something really serious, shut off from help, the way we are."

She nodded gravely. "I've thought of that. I did manage to deliver a baby, but suppose we have an attack of appendicitis? Or—I thought about meningitis. Thank heaven, Sammy's had his polio shots. I'm going to hole up in a school that has a doctor next time we have a hurricane."

He poured more soup and they sat spooning it up in shallow wooden spoons.

"I stopped by to see the Wards, too," she went on after a while. "They are such darlings."

Cliff's face wore its dark look. "I can't understand why people like that shouldn't have children and people who'd a lot rather not be bothered, do," he said with surprising bitterness.

"It's one of the mysteries," she agreed. "You have somebody special in mind?"

He looked up, startled at her question. The bitterness was still in his voice. "Yeah. My folks. My mother ran off and left my father and me when I can just remember. I suppose I don't really blame her. My father was no prize packet even when he was sober. Are the Wards all right? Do they need anything?"

She told him about their soup and sandwiches and about the coconut that had cracked the windowpane in the teachers' room. And all the time, she was wrung with pity for the boy whose mother had run off and whose father was no prize packet. It was obvious that Cliff didn't want to talk about it further, but she would have liked him to know how sympathetic she felt.

Donna was in the halls again, going from room to room, checking to see how all the school's registered guests fared. Primary-aged children were playing tag, and she found it difficult to make her way through. Mary Hendley, at one far end of the building, had gathered the smaller children on the steps to the second floor and was telling the story of
Chicken Little
. Donna waved gaily to her and went on without interrupting.

She found one small six-month-old who whimpered continually in his mother's arms. Mrs. Frailey was perhaps thirty-five and looked ten years older. She looked up with an unwelcoming scowl when Donna knocked and, in answer to the other's surly, "Come in," entered.

"You're that nurse that's always sending home notes about the kids having their shots, or needing glasses, or something," she said by way of greeting.

Donna was taken aback by this show of displeasure on the part of one of the school's patrons, but she managed a firm smile and said, "I'm sure you are as anxious to have your children well as I am. You're Mrs. Frailey, aren't you? I remember I registered you and your family yesterday."

The woman ignored the reference to her name and her family. "I had me nine kids, seven of 'em livin', an' I reckon I don't need no snip of a girl tellin' me what to do with my own young'uns," she said sulkily.

"I'm sure you don't. But I heard the baby fretting, and I thought you must be tired. You can't have slept very well on that quilt last night. Can't I take the baby a while and let you rest?"

Mrs. Frailey studied her for a moment as if she were trying to find some ulterior motive for the offer. Then her face softened and she tucked back a fallen lock of hair and held the baby out. "He's wet. Ever notice how a boy wets more'n a girl? Always wet, that one. An' I just changed him." She sighed deeply.

Donna cuddled the little boy to her shoulder, where he dug in sharp knees and went on with his unhappy wail. "If you have a dry diaper, I'll change him," she offered.

Mrs. Frailey shook her unkempt head. "He's wet ever' one. I woulda washed 'em out only, rainin' like it is, they wouldn't adried."

"No, I guess not," Donna admitted. "Maybe I can find a towel in my office that will do. I really do know how to take care of babies, Mrs. Frailey, even if I haven't had any of my own. There were hundreds at the hospital where I trained."

The same lock of hair had fallen across Mrs. Frailey's cheek once more, and once more she tucked it in. "Ain't the same as havin' seven underfoot all the time," she commented.

Donna felt more at ease now. Her smile seemed a normal part of her face. "No, I suppose not. I'll bring— What's his name?"

"Joey," Mrs. Frailey told her.

"I'll bring Joey back after a while. You get a nap, if you can."

The linen supply in her office was almost exhausted, she remembered as she went back there. Mr. Poague was asleep, and she put Joey down on one of the tables, holding him there with a firm hand across his stomach. He still complained weakly. Linen was indeed getting low. Donna took out the last two towels.

When she had taken off the wet diaper, she found that the baby was scarlet with rash. She took off the rest of his sour-smelling clothes, took him to the sink and soaped him all over with the delicate soap she reserved for her hands, then rinsed him in the lukewarm water that fortunately still came from the tap. One of the towels mopped him dry and she took him on her shoulder while she searched for an antiseptic powder that she sometimes used on heat rash of the children. She sprinkled it generously, tore up a perfectly good sheet and folded it into an oblong, using Mrs. Frailey's safety pins to fasten it.

Her fastidious young nose turned up at the thought of putting the same soiled clothes back on the baby and she wished for a clean sweater, or clean petticoat and dress. It was too damp and cool to leave him as he was. Reluctantly, she dressed him again. He was drowsy now, with lolling head and barely slit eyes. More comfortable, he had ceased his continuous whine. Donna put him down on a table against the wall and drew a chair to the other side to prevent his rolling off, then rinsed out his diaper. Maybe it wouldn't dry, but as least it would smell clean.

She was hanging it on a chair back when Hank came to the door and motioned to her. She went to him and he complained, "I've hardly seen you since the storm began, and then not alone."

She laughed. "I don't know about you, but I've been busy. You know about our new baby?"

He grinned somewhat wryly. "I do, indeed. My office is turned into an obstetrics ward and I'm all but forbidden there. Even that parrot is more welcome in there than I. Congratulations on your part in bringing in the new citizen."

"I'm nursing a young Frailey now," she went on. "He's all broken out with rash. His mother started out by telling me she'd had seven children and didn't mean for a young snip like me to tell her how to raise them. Poor thing. She looked so tired."

"I doubt if there is anyone in the building who doesn't look a bit the worse for wear," Hank said. "There wasn't much sleep here last night."

Donna nodded, feeling tired herself, now that she thought of it.

"Look, Donna," Hank began, and seemed to have some difficulty going on. Then, running his words together, he blurted out the thought that was in his mind. "I didn't know you were going with Cliff Warrender."

She looked up, startled. "But I'm not."

"You came here with him yesterday," he accused.

She nodded. "One of my apartment mates is his secretary. He was at the apartment when I got there and was coming here to represent the Red Cross. He had his car and offered to bring me. I've never had a date with him."

She hadn't said a word that wasn't true, yet she realized that the sum of them was misleading: and she felt guilty. She liked Hank, but she was conscious that he was more interested in her than she in him. She had no right to lead him on, to give him an impression that might be misleading. Yet she could think of nothing else to add. A girl simply couldn't say to a man who hadn't declared himself that she liked him as a friend but wasn't in love with him. And hadn't she thought up to yesterday that, given time, she might fall in love with Hank?

Swiftly, she turned her mind away from the path where these thoughts might be leading.

"Oh," Hank said, brightening. "You've been seeing so much of him since you came out yesterday that I thought—"

Here was her chance. "I do think he's fun, Hank. I'm not in love with anybody. I'm sort of young to be settling down unless I'm absolutely sure, don't you think? Come to think about it, any girl's too young unless she's absolutely sure."

He looked a little taken aback, but he said, cheerfully enough, "Yes, I guess that's right."

Dusty Hosey appeared at the principal's elbow. "Mr. Fincher, we've got a battery radio that's playing some good dance music between announcements about the storm and we want to dance in the hall. There's no other place where there's room enough. Only, the little kids are playing there. They've been there all day."

Hank turned to face the speaker, and found about twenty teenagers grouped about him and looking hopefully at him.

"We can't dance with the little kids dodging in and out, sir." A pretty girl with her dark hair piled high and shaped like a beehive smiled winningly at him.

Hank thought about the problem for a minute. "There ought to be a way to settle that," he decided. "Why don't you young folks take the left end of the hall and we'll get the younger ones to play in the right end? That should give everybody a place to do what he wants to. Okay?"

Dusty nodded. "Only, the kids won't pay attention to us. Will you tell them that that's what we're doing?"

Hank grinned at him. "Sure. Why not?" He smiled back at Donna. "Be seeing you." And he was gone in the wake of the youngsters.

Donna smiled wistfully after him. He is nice, she thought. Just about the nicest man I know. I ought to be kicked for thinking less of him because Cliff is—is— She didn't know exactly how to explain the quality which Cliff Warrender had that made Hank seem unexciting. She didn't approve of Cliff, she reminded herself. He had some funny ideas about the practice of law. He spent most of his time defending criminals. The right sort of lawyer would defend the law, not support those who broke it. She would put Cliff Warrender out of her mind.

Young Joey Frailey woke with a loud, angry howl, as different from his earlier whimper as possible. Donna chuckled. "You sound hungry, my lad. Maybe you'd like some canned milk warmed up for you."

She lighted the sterno stove and opened the can and set a boiler on, testing the milk from time to time with a newly washed forefinger. When she decided she had it warm enough, she began to feed it to the little boy with a spoon. Hunger had been his trouble, and he went after it enthusiastically. Afterward, she opened a can of applesauce and fed him some of that. Finally, he sat smacking his lips, but turned his head away when he was offered more. And he was wet again.

She had torn off another square of the sheet and was powdering him preparatory to pinning it on when Mrs. Frailey came to her office door.

"He ain't been crying so much, has he?" she asked, looking at the baby questioningly.

Donna shook her head. "He's been asleep most of the time."

Mrs. Frailey peered down at the well-powdered thighs. "What's that you're puttin' on him?" she demanded.

"Powder. He had diaper rash," Donna explained. "I think that was what was making him cry. Powder, after careful washing with a gentle soap and keeping his diapers dry, ought to help him be comfortable. You take the rest of this old sheet. It's soft. And the antiseptic powder. And this soap. They'll all help."

Mrs. Frailey studied the young face. "I reckon all this studyin' you done did teach you a thing or two about kids. And you aren't much more'n a kid yourself," she said wonderingly.

Donna was young enough to be affronted by this accusation. "I'm twenty-two," she announced firmly.

Mrs. Frailey shrugged. "Well, you don't look it. I already had me three kids when I was twenty-two. Some folks keep younger'n others. You Cliff Warrender's girl friend?"