 Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott, Chapter 5 Off Duty. My dear girl, we shall have you sick in your bed unless you keep yourself warm and quiet for a few days. Widow Admin can take care of the ward alone, now the men are so comfortable, and have her vacation when you are about again. Now do be prudent in time, and don't let me have to add a periwinkle to my bouquet of patience. This advice was delivered in a paternal manner by the youngest surgeon in the hospital, a kind-hearted little gentleman who seemed to consider me a frail young blossom that needed much cherishing instead of a tough old spinster who had been knocking about the world for thirty years. At this time I write of, he discovered me sitting on the stairs with a nice cloud of unwholesome steam rising from the washroom, a party of January breezes, desporting themselves in the halls and perfumes by no means from Arabid the Blessed, keeping them company while I enjoyed a fit of coughing which caused my head to spin in a way that made the application of a cool banister, both necessary and agreeable, as I waited for the frolicsome wind to restore the breath I'd lost, cheering myself meantime with a secret conviction that pneumonia was waiting for me around the corner. This piece of advice had been offered by several persons for a week and refused by me with the obstinacy with which my sex is so richly gifted. But the last few hours had developed several surprising internal and external phenomena which impressed upon me the fact that if I didn't make a masterly retreat very soon, I should tumble down somewhere and have to be borne ignominiously from the field. My head felt like a cannonball, my feet had a tendency to cleave to the floor, the walls at times undulated in a most disagreeable manner, people looked unnaturally big, and the very bottles on the mankull's shelf appeared to dance derisively before my eyes. Taking these things into consideration while blinking stupidly at Dr. Z, I resolved to retire gracefully, if I must, so with a valedictory to my boys, a private lecture to Mrs. Wadman, and a fervent wish that I could take off my body and work in my soul, I mournfully ascended to my apartment and nurse P. was reported off duty. For the benefit of any ardent damsel whose patriotic fancy may have surrounded hospital life with a halo of charms, I will briefly describe the bower to which I retired in a somewhat ruinous condition. It was well ventilated, for five panes of glass had suffered compound fractures, which all the surgeons and nurses had failed to heal, the two windows were draped with sheets, the church hospital opposite being a brick and mortar argous, and the female mind cherishing a prejudice and favor of literacy during the night-capped periods of existence. A bare floor supported two narrow iron beds spread with thin mattresses like plasters, furnished with pillows in the last stages of consumption. In a fireplace, guiltless of shovel tongs and irons or grate, burned a log inch by inch being too long to go on all at once, so while the fire blazed away at one end, I did the same at the other as I tripped over it a dozen times a day and flew up to poke it a dozen times at night. A mirror, let us be elegant, of the dimensions of a muffin and about as reflective hung over a tin basin, blue pitcher, and a brace of yellow mugs. Two invalid tables, ditto chairs, wandering here and there, and the closet contained a varied collection of bonnets bottles, bags, boots, bread, and butter boxes, and bugs. The closet was a regular bluebeard cupboard to me, I always opened it with fear and trembling owing to rats, and shut it in anguish of spirit for time and space were not to be had, and chaos reigned along with the rats. Our chimneypiece was decorated with a flat iron, a Bible, a candle minus stick, a lavender bottle, a new tin pan so brilliant that it served nicely for a pier glass, and such of the portly black bugs as preferred a warmer climate than the rubbish hole afforded. Two arcs, commonly called trunks, lurked behind the door containing the worldly goods of the twain who laughed and cried, slept and scrambled in this refuge, while from the white washed walls above either bed looked down the pictured faces of those whose memory can make for us one little room and everywhere, for a day or two I managed to appear at meals, for the human grub must eat till the butterfly is ready to break loose, and no one had time to come up two flights while it was possible for me to come down. Far be it from me to add another affliction or approach to that enduring man, the steward, for compared with his predecessor, he was a horn of plenty, but I put it to any candid mine is not the following bill of fair susceptible of improvement without plunging the nation madly into debt. The three meals were pretty much of a muchness, and consisted of beef evidently put down for the men of seventy-six, pork just in from the street, army bread composed of salt dust and saluretus, butter, salt as if churned by Lot's wife, stewed blackberries so much like preserved cockroaches that only those devoid of imagination could partake thereof with relish, coffee, mild and muddy, tea, three dried huckleberry leaves to a quart of water, flavored with lime, also animated and unconscious of any approach to clearness. Variety being the spice of life, a small pinch of the article would have been appreciated by the hungry, hardworking sisterhood, one of whom thought accustomed to plain fair soon found herself reduced to bread and water, having an inborn repugnant to the fat of the land and the salt of the earth. Another peculiarity of these hospital meals was the rapidity with which the edibles vanished and the impossibility of getting a drop or crumb after the usual time. At the first ring of the bell a general stampede took place, some twenty hungry souls rushed to the dining room, swept over the table like a swarm of locusts and left no fragment for any tardy creature who arrived fifteen minutes late. Thinking it of more importance than the patients should be well and comfortably fed, I took my time about my own meals for the first day or two after I came but was speedily enlightened by Isaac, the black waiter, who bore with me a few times and then informed me, looking as stern as fate. I say, ma'am, if you come so late you can't have no vitals, because I'm bleakened for to get things ready for the doctors, maize and spry, art of you nusses, and folks is done. Dejentlemen, don't care for it to wait, no more desires, so you just please to come at the time and there won't be no fretting no wares. It was a new sensation to stand looking at a full table painfully conscious of one of the vacuums which nature abhors and receive orders to write about face without partaking of the nourishment which your inner woman clamorously demanded. The doctors always fared better than we, and for a moment a desperate impulse prompted me to give them a hint by walking off with the mutton or confiscating the pie. But Ike's eye was on me, and to my shame, be it spoken, I walked meekly away, went dinnerless that day, and that evening went to market, laying in a small stock of crackers, cheese and apples, that my boys might not be neglected, nor myself obliged to both solid and liquid dyspepsias or starve. This plan would have succeeded admirably, had not the evil star under which I was born but in the Ascendant during that month, and cast its malign influences even into my umbilarder for the rats had their dessert off my cheese, the bugs set up housekeeping in my cracker bag, and the apples, like all worldly riches, took to themselves wings and flew away. Whether no man could tell, though certain black imps might have thrown light upon the manor, had not the plaintiff in the case been loathed to add another to the many trials of long-suffering Africa. After this failure, I resigned, myself to fate, and remembering that bread was called the Staff of Life, leaned pretty exclusively upon it, but approved a broken reed, and I came to the ground after a few weeks of prison fare, varied by an occasional potato or surreptitious sip of milk. Very soon after leaving the care of my ward, I discovered that I had no appetite and cut the bread and butter interests almost entirely, trying the exercise and sun cure instead. Flattering myself that I had plenty of time and could see all that was to be seen, so far as a lone, lorn female could venture in a city, one half of whose male population seemed to be taking the other half to the guardhouse, every morning I took a brisk run in one direction or another for the January days was mild as spring. A rollicking north wind and occasional snowstorm would have been more to my taste, for the one would have braced and refreshed tired body and soul, the other have purified the air and spread a clean cover lid over the bed wherein the capital of these United States appeared to be dozing pretty soundly just then. One of these trips was to the Armory Hospital, the neatness, comfort and convenience of which makes it an honor to its presiding genius and arouses all the covetous propensities of such nurses as came from other hospitals to visit it. The long clean warm and airy wards built barrack fashion with the nurse's room at the end were fully appreciated by nurse Perry Winkle, whose ward and private bower were cold, dirty, inconvenient, upstairs and downstairs and in everybody's chamber. At the Armory in Ward K I found a cheery bright-eyed white apron little lady reading at her post near the stove, matting under her feet, a draft of fresh air flowing in above her head, a table full of trays, glasses, and such matters on one side, a large well-stocked medicine chest on the other, and all her duties seemed to be going about now and then to give doses, issue orders, which well-trained attendants executed and pet, advise, or comfort Tom, Dick, or Harry as she found best. As I watched the proceedings I recalled my own tribulations and contrasted the two hospitals in a way that would have caused my summary dismissal could it have been reported at headquarters. Here order, method, common sense, and liberality reigned and ruled in a style that did one's heart good to see. At the Hurley-Burley Hotel disorder and discomfort bad management and no visible head reduced things to a condition which I despair of describing. The circumlocution fashion prevailed, forms and fusses tormented our souls and unnecessary strictness in one place was counterbalanced by unpardonable laxity in another. Here's a sample. I am dressing Sam Dammer's shoulder and having cleansed the wound look about for some strips of adhesive plaster to hold on the little square of wet linen which is to cover the gunshot wound. The case is not in the tray. Frank, the sleepy half-sick attendant, knows nothing of it. We rummage high and low. Sam is tired and fumes. Frank dawdles and yawns. The men advise and laugh at the flurry. I feel like a boiling tea kettle with the lid ready to fly off and damage somebody. Go and borrow some from the next ward and spend the rest of the day in finding hours. I finally command. A pause. Then Frank scuffles back with the message, Miss peppercorn ain't got none. It says you ain't no business to lose your own duds and go barring other folks's. I say nothing for fear of saying too much but fly to the surgery. Mr. Toddy Pessil informs me that I can't have anything without an order from the surgeon of my ward. Great heavens, where is he? In a way I rush up and down here and there till at last I find him in a state of bliss over complicated amputation in the fourth story. I make my demand be answers in five minutes and works away with his head upside down as he ties an artery, saws a bone, or does a little needle work with a visible relish and very sanguinary pair of hands. The five minutes grow to 15 and Frank appears with the remark that dammer wants to know what in the thunder you're keeping him there with his finger on a wet rag for. Dr. P. tears himself away long enough to scribble the order with which I plunge downward to the surgery again, find the door locked, and while hammering away on it, I'm told that two friends are waiting to see me in the hall. The matron, being away, her parlor is locked and there is nowhere to see my guests but in my own room and no time to enjoy them till the plaster is found. I settle this matter and circulate through the house to find Toddy Pessel, who has no right to leave the surgery till night. He is discovered in the dead house smoking a cigar and very much the worst for his researches among the spiritual preparations that fill the surgery shelves. He is inclined to be galant and puts the finishing blow to the fire of my wrath for the tea kettle lid flies off and driving him before me to his post, I fling down the order, take what I choose, and leaving the absurd and capable kissing his hand to me depart feeling as grandma Rigelesty is reported to have done when she vainly sought for chips in Bimlich-Jackwood's shiftless pastor. I find dammer a well-acted charade of his own name and, just as I get him done, struggling the while with a burning desire to clap an adhesive strip across his mouth full of heaven-defying oaths, Frank takes up his boot to put it on and exclaims, I'm blessed if here ain't that case now, I recollect seeing it pitchin this morning but forgot all about it to my heel and smash into it. Here ma'am, catch hold on it and give the boys a sheet on all rounds against it tumbles enter to other boot next time you want it. If a look could annihilate Francis' softbox would have ceased to exist but it couldn't therefore yet he lives to aggravate some unhappy woman's soul and wax fat in some equally congenial situation. Now while I'm freeing my mind I should like to enter my protest against employing convalescence as attendants instead of strong properly trained and cheerful men. How it may be in other places I cannot say but here it was a source of constant trouble and confusion these feeble ignorant men trying to sweep scrub lift and wait upon their sicker comrades. One with a diseased heart was expected to run up and downstairs carry heavy trays and move helpless men he tried it and grew rapidly worse than when he first came and when he was ordered out to march away to the convalescent hospital fell in a sort of fit before he turned the corner and was brought back to die. Another hurt by a fall from his horse endeavored to do his duty but failed entirely and the wrath of the ward master fell upon the nurse who must either scrub the rooms herself or take the lecture for the boy looked stout and well and the master never happened to see him turn white with pain or hear him groan in his sleep when an involuntary motion strained his poor back. Constant complaints were being made of incompetent attendance and some dozen women did double duty and then were blamed for breaking down. If any hospital director fancies this a good and economical arrangement allow one used up nurse to tell him it isn't and beg him to spare the sisterhood who sometimes in their sympathy forget that they are mortal and run the risk of being made immortal sooner than is agreeable to their partial friends. Another of my few rambles took me to the Senate chamber hoping to hear and see if this large machine was run any better than some small ones I knew of. I was too late and found the speaker's chair occupied by a colored gentleman of 10 while two others were on their legs having a hot debate on the cornball question as they gathered the waste paper strewn about the floor into bags and several white members played leapfrog over the desks a much wholesome relaxation than some of the older senators indulging I fancy. Finding the coast clear I likewise gambled up and down from gallery to gallery sat in Sumner's chair and cuddled an imaginary Brooks within an inch of his life examined Wilson's books in the coolest possible manner warmed my feet at one of the national registers read people's names on scattered envelopes and pocketed a castaway autograph or two watched the somewhat unparliamentary proceedings going on about me and wondered who in the world all the sedate gentlemen were who kept popping out of odd doors here and there like respectable jacks in the box then I wandered over the palatial residence of mrs columbia and examined its many beauties though I can't say I thought her a tidy housekeeper and didn't admire her taste in pictures for the eye of this humble individual soon wearied of expiring patriots who all appeared to be quitting their earthly tabernacles in convulsions ruffled shirts and a whirl of torn banners bombshells and buff and blue arms and legs the statuary also was massive and concrete but rather wearying to examine for the colossal ladies and gentlemen carried no cards of introduction in face or figure so whether the meditative party in a kilt with well-developed legs shoes like army slippers and a ponderous nose was columbus kato or cockalorum tibie the tragedy in was more than I could tell several robust ladies attracted me but which was america and which pocahontas was a mystery for all affected much looseness of costume dishevelment of hair swords arrows lances scales and other adornments quite passé with damsels of our day whose effigies should go down to posterity armed with fans crochet needles riding whips and parasols with here and there one holding pen or pencil rolling pin or broom the Statue of Liberty I recognized it once for it had no pedestal as yet but stood flat in the mud with young america most symbolically making dirt pies and chip forts in its shadow but high above the squabbling little throng and their petty plans the sun shone full on liberty's broad forehead and in her hand some summer bird had built its nest I accepted the good old man then and on the first of january the emancipation act gave the statue a nobler and more enduring pedestal than any marble or granite ever carved and quarried by human bands one trip to georgetown heights where cedars sighed overhead dead leaves rustled underfoot pleasant paths led up and down and a broke wound like a silver snake by the blackened ruins of some french minister's house through the poor gardens of the black washer women who congregated there and passing the cemetery with a murmurous lullaby lulled away to pay its little tribute to the river this breezy run was the last I took for on the morrow came rain and wind and confinement soon proved a powerful reinforcement to the enemy who was quietly preparing to spring a mind and blow me 500 miles from the position I had taken in what I called my chickahominy swamp shut up in my room with no voice spirits or books that week was not a holiday by any means finding meals a humbug I stopped away altogether trusting that if this sparrow was of any worth the lord would not let it fall to the ground lucky flock of friendly ravens my sister nurses fed me not only with food for the body but kind words for the mind and soon from being half starved I found myself so be teetered and be toasted petted and served that I was quite in the lap of luxury in spite of cough headache a painful consciousness of my pleura and a realizing sense of bones in the human frame from the pleasant house on the hill the home in the heart of washington and the willard caravan sary came friends new and old with bottles baskets carriages and invitations for the invalid and daily our florence nightingale climbed the steep stairs stealing a moment from her busy life to watch over the stranger of whom she was as thoughtfully tender as any mother long may she wave whatever others think or say nurse periwinkle is forever grateful and among her relics of that washington defeat none is more valued than the little book which appeared on her pillow one dreary day for the dd written in it means to her far more than doctor of divinity being forbidden to meddle with fleshy arms and legs I solaced myself by mending cotton ones and as I sat sewing at my window watched the moving panorama that passed below i'm using myself with taking notes of the most striking figures in it long trains of army wagons kept up a perpetual rumble from morning till night ambulances rattled to and fro with busy surgeons nurses taking an airing or convalescence going in parties to be fitted to artificial limbs strings of sorry looking horses passed saying as plainly as dumb creatures could why in a city full of them is there no horse spittle for us often a cart came by with several rough coffins in it and no mourners following barouches with invalid officers rolled around the corner and carriage loads of pretty children with black coachmen footmen and maids the women who took their walks abroad were so extinguished in three-story bonnets with overhanging balconies of flowers that their charms were obscured and all i could say of them is that they dressed in the worst possible taste and walked like ducks the men did the picturesque and did it so well that washington looked like a mammoth masquerade spanish hats scarlet lined riding cloaks swords and sashes high boots and bright spurs beards and mustaches which made plain faces comely and comely faces heroic these vanities of the flesh transformed our butchers bakers and candlestick makers into gallant riders of gaily comparison horses much hansomer than themselves and dozens of such figures were constantly prancing by with private prickings of spurs for the benefit of the perambulating flower bed some of these gentlemen affected painfully tight uniforms and little caps kept on by some new law of gravitation as they covered only the bridge of the nose yet never fell off the men looked like stuffed fowls and rode as if the safety of the nation depended on their speed alone the fattest grayest officers dressed most and ambled stately along with orderlies behind trying to look as if they didn't know the stout party in front and doing much care-calling on their own account the mules were my special delight and an hour study of a constant succession of them introduced me to many of their characteristics for six of these odd little beasts drew each army wagon and went hopping like frogs through the stream of mud that gently rolled along the street the coquettish mule had small feet a nice trimmed tassel of a tail perked up ears and seemed much given to little tosses of the head affected skips and prances and if he wore the bells or were bedizoned with a bit of finery put on as many ears as any bell the moral mule was a stout hardworking creature always tugging with all his might often pulling away after the rest had stopped laboring under the conscientious delusion that food for the entire army depended upon his private exertions i respected this style of mule and had i possessed a juicy cabbage would have pressed it upon him with thanks for his excellent example the historical mule was a melodramatic quadruped prone to startling humanity by erratic leaps and wild plunges much shaking of his stubborn head and lashing out of his vicious heels now and then falling flat and apparently dying a la forest a gasp a squirm a flop and so on till the street was well blocked up the drivers all swearing like demons and bad hats and the chief actors circulation decidedly quickened by every variety of kick cuff jerk and haul when the last breath seemed to have left his body and doctors were in vain a sudden resurrection took place and if ever a mule laughed with scornful triumph that was the beast as he leisurely rose gave a comfortable shake and calmly regarded the excited crowd seemed to say a hit a decided hit for the stupidest of animals has bamboozled a dozen men now then what are you stopping the way for the pathetic mule was perhaps the most interesting of all for though he always seemed to be the smallest thinnest weakest of the six the pustillian with big boots long tailed coat and heavy whip was sure to be stride this one who struggled feebly along head down coat muddy and rough eye spiritless and sad his very tail a mortified stomp and the whole beast a picture of meek misery fit to touch a heart of stone the jovial mule was a roly-poly happy-go-lucky little piece of horse flesh taking everything easily from cuddling to caressing strolling along with a roguish twinkle of the eye and if the thing were possible would have had his hands in his pockets and whistled as he went if there ever chance to be an apple core a stray turnip or a wisp of hay in the gutter this marked happily was sure to find it and none of his mates seem to begrudge him his bite i suspected this fellow was the peacemaker confinon and friend of all the others for he had a sort of cheerful boy i'll pull you through look which was exceedingly engaging pigs also possessed attractions for me never having had an opportunity of observing their graces of mind and manner till i came to washington whose porcine citizens appeared to enjoy a larger liberty than many of its human ones stout sedate-looking pigs hurried by each morning to their places of business with a preoccupied air and sonorous greeting to their friends genteel pigs with an extra curl to their tails promenaded in pairs launching here and there like gentlemen of leisure rowdy pigs pushed the passersby off the sidewalk tipsy pigs hiccuffed their version of we won't go home till morning from the gutter and delicate young pigs tripped daintily through the mud as if like mrs. peary bingle they plumed themselves upon their ankles and kept themselves particularly neat in point of stockings maternal pigs with their interesting families strolled by in the sun and often the pink babylike squealers lay down for nap with a trust in providence worthy of human imitation but more interesting than officers ladies mules or pigs were my colored brothers and sisters because so unlike the respectable members of society i'd known in moral boston here was the genuine article no not the genuine article at all we must go to africa for that but the sort of creatures generations of slavery have made them obsequious trickish lazy and ignorant yet kind-hearted mary tempered quick to feel and accept the least token of the brotherly love which is slowly teaching the white hand to grasp the black in this great struggle for the liberty of both the races having been warned not to be too rampant on the subject of slavery as seekish principles flourished even under the respectable nose of father abraham i had endeavored to walk discreetly and curb my unruly member looking about me with all my eyes the while and saving up the result of my observations for future use i had not been there a week before the neglected devil make care expression and many of the faces about me seemed an urgent appeal to leave nursing white bodies and take some care for these black souls much as the lazy boys and saucy girls tormented me i liked them and found that any show of interest or friendliness brought out the better traits which live in the most degraded and forsaken of us all i liked their cheerfulness for the dreariest old hag who scrubbed all day in that pestilential stream gossiped and grinned all the way out when night set her free from drudgery the girls romped with their dusky sweethearts or tossed their babies with a tender pride that makes mother love a beautifier to the homeless face the men and boys sang and whistled all day long and often as i held my watch the silence of the night was sweetly broken by some course from the street full of real melody whether the song was of heaven or of hoe cakes and as i listened i felt that we never should doubt nor despair concerning erase which through such griefs and wrongs still clings to this good gift and seems to solace with it the patient hearts that wait and watch and hope until the end i expected to have to defend myself from accusations of prejudice against color but was surprised to find things just the other way and daily shocked some neighbor by treating the blacks as i did the whites the men would swear at the darkies would put two g's into negro and scoff at the idea of any good coming from such trash the nurses were willing to be served by the colored people but seldom thanked them never praised and scarcely recognize them in the street where at the blood of two generations of abolitionists waxed hot in my veins and at the first opportunity proclaimed itself and asserted the right of free speech as doggedly as the irrepressible fulsome herself happening to catch up a funny little black baby who was toddling about the nurses kitchen one day when i went down to make a mess for some of my men a virginia woman standing by elevated her most prominent features with a sniff of disapprobation exclaiming gracious miss p how can you i've been here six months and never so much as touched the little toad with a poker more shame for you ma'am responded miss p and with the natural perversity of a yankee followed up the blow by kissing the toad with ardor his face was providentially as clean and shiny as if his mama had just polished it up with a corner of her apron and a drop from the tea kettle spout like old and chloe this rash act and the anti-slavery lecture that followed while one hand stirred gruel for sick america and the other hugged baby africa did not produce the cheering result which i fondly expected for my comrade henceforth regarded me as a dangerous fanatic and my protege nearly came to his death by insisting on swarming upstairs to my room on all occasions and being walked on like a little black spider i waited for new year's day with more eagerness than i had ever known before and though it brought me no gift i felt rich in the act of justice so tardily performed towards some of those about me as the bells rung midnight i electrified my roommate by dancing out of bed throwing up the window and flapping my handkerchief with a feeble cheer and answer to the shout of a group of colored men in the street below all night they tooted and tramped fired crackers sung glory hallelujah and took comfort porcelains in their own way the sky was clear the moon shown benignly a mild wind blew across the river and all good omen seemed to usher in the dawn of the day whose noon tide cannot now be long in coming if the colored people had taken hands and danced around the white house with a few cheers for the much abused gentleman who has immortalized himself by one just act no president could have had a finer levy or one to be prouder of while these sights and sounds were going on without curious scenes were passing within and i was learning that one of the best methods of fitting oneself to be a nurse in a hospital is to be a patient there for then only can one wholly realized what the men suffer and sigh for how acts of kindness touch and win how much or little we are to those about us and for the first time really see that in coming there we have taken our lives in our hands and may have to pay dearly for a brief experience everyone was very kind the attendance of my ward often came up to report progress to fill my wood box or bring messages and presents from the boys the nurses took many steps with those tired feet of theirs and several came each evening to chat over my fire and make things cozy for the night the doctors paid daily visits tapped in my lungs to see if pneumonia was within left doses without names and went away leaving me as ignorant and much more uncomfortable than when they came hours began to get confused people looked odd queer faces haunted the room and the nights were one long fight with weariness and pain letters from home grew anxious the doctors lifted their eyebrows and nodded ominously friends said don't stay and an internal rebellion second the advice but the three months were not out and the idea of giving up so soon was proclaiming a defeat before i was fairly routed so to all don't stays i opposed i wills till one fine morning a gray-headed gentleman rose like a welcome ghost on my heart and at the side of him my resolution melted away my heart turned traitor to my boys and when he said come home i answered yes father and so ended my career as an army nurse i never shall regret the going though a sharp tussle with typhoid ten dollars and a wig are all the visible results of the experiment for one may live and learn much in a month a good fit of illness proves the value of health real danger tries once metal and self-sacrifice sweeten's character let no one who sincerely desires to help the work on in this way delay going through any fear for the worth of life lies in the experiences that fill it and this is one which cannot be forgotten all that is best and bravest in the hearts of men and women comes out in scenes like these and though a hospital is a rough school its lessons are both stern and salutary and the humblest of pupils there in proportion to his faithfulness learns a deeper faith in god and in himself i for one would return tomorrow on the up again and take another principal if i could for the amount of pleasure and profit i got out of that month compensates for all the pangs and though a sadly womanish feeling i take some satisfaction in the thought that if i could not lay my head on the altar of my country i have my hair and that is more than handsome helen did for her dead husband when she sacrificed only the ends of her ringlets on his urn therefore i close this little chapter of hospital experiences with the regret that they were no better worth recording and add the poetical gem with which i console myself for the untimely demise of nurse periwinkle oh lay her in a little pit with a marble stone to cover it and carve there on a gruel spoon to show a nuss has died too soon end of chapter five off duty hospital sketches by louisa may alcott chapter six a postscript this is a libervox recording all libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or how to volunteer please visit libervox.org chapter six a postscript my dear s as inquiries like your own have come to me from various friendly readers of the sketches i will answer them en masse and in printed form as a sort of postscript to what has gone before one of these questions was are there no services by hospital deathbeds or on sundays in most hospitals i hope there are in hours the men died and were carried away with as little ceremony as on a battlefield the first event of this kind which i witnessed was so very brief and bearer of anything like reverence sorrow or pious consolation that i heartily agreed with the bluntly expressed opinion of a main man lying next his comrade who died with no visible help near him but a compassionate woman and a tenderhearted irish man who dropped upon his knees and told his beads with catholic fervor for the good of his protestant brother's parting soul if ever gets in all the hard knocks we are left to die this way but nothing but a patty's prayers to help us i guess christians are rather scarce around washington i thought so too but thought miss blank one of my mates anxious that souls should be ministered to as well as bodies spoke more than once to the chaplain nothing ever came of it unlike another shepherd whose earnest piety weakly purified the senate chamber this man did not feed as well as fold his flock nor make himself a human symbol of the divine samaritan who never passes by on the other side i have since learned that our non-committal chaplain had been a professor in some southern college and though he maintained that he had no secession proclivities i can testify that he seceded from his ministerial duties i may say skedaddled for being one of his own words it is as appropriate as an elegant he read emerson quoted carlyle and tried to be a chaplain but judging from his success i am afraid he's still hankered after the harmony pots of rebelled him occasionally on a sunday afternoon such of the nurses officers attendance and patients as could avail themselves of it were gathered in the ballroom for an hour service of which the singing was the better part to me it seemed that if ever strong wise and loving words were needed it was then if ever mortal man had living texts before his eyes to illustrate and illuminate his thought it was there and if ever hearts were prompted to devoutest self abnegation it was in the work of which brought us to anything but a chapel of ease but some spiritual paralysis seemed to have befallen our pastor for the many faces turned toward him full of the dumb hunger that often comes to men when suffering or danger brings them nearer to the heart of things they were offered the chaff of dignity and its wheat was left for less needy gleaners who knew where to look even the fine old bible stories which may have made as lifelike as any history of our own day by a vivid fancy and pictorial diction were robbed of all their charms by dry explanations and literal applications instead of being useful and pleasant lessons to those men whom weakness had rendered as docile as children in a father's hands i watched the listless countenances all about me while a mild daniel was moralizing in a den of utterly uninteresting lions while shadrach mishak and abendigo were leisurely passing through the fiery furnace where i sadly feared some of us sincerely wished they had remained as permanencies while the temple of Solomon was laboriously erected with minute descriptions of the process and any quantity of bells and pomegranates on the raiment of the priests listless they were at the beginning and listless at the end but the instance some stirring old hymn was given out sleepy eyes brightened lounging figures sat erect and many a poor lad rose up in his bed or stretch an eager hand for the book while all broke out with a heartiness that proved that somewhere at the core of even the most abandon there still glowed some remnant of the native piety that flows in music from the heart of every little child even the big rebel joined and boomed away in a thunderous bass singing salvation let the echoes fly as energetically as if he felt the need of a speedy execution of the command that was the pleasantest moment of the hour for then it seemed a home-like and happy spot the groups of men looking over one another's shoulders as they sang the few silent figures in the beds here and there a woman noiselessly performed some necessary duty and singing as she worked while in the armchair standing in the midst i placed for my own satisfaction the imaginary likeness of a certain faithful pastor who took all outcasts by the hand smote the devil in whatever guise he came and comforted the indigent in spirit with the best wisdom of a great and tender heart which still speaks to us from its Italian grave with that addition my picture was complete and i often longed to take a veritable sketch of a hospital sunday for despite its drawbacks consisting of continued labor the want of proper books the barren preaching that bore no fruit this day was never like the other six true to their home training our new england boys did their best to make it what it should be with many there was much reading of testaments humming over of favorite hymns and looking at such books as i could call from a miscellaneous library some lay idle slept or gossiped yet when i came to them for a quiet evening chat they often talked freely and well of themselves would blunder out some timid hope that their troubles might do them good and keep them steady would choke a little as they said good night and turned their face to the wall to think of mother wife or home these human ties seemed to be the most vital religion which they yet knew i observed that some of them did not wear their caps on this day though at other times they clung to them like quakers wearing them in bed putting them on to read the paper eat an apple or write a letter as if like a new sort of samson their strength lie not in their hair but in their hats many red no novels swore less were more silent orderly and cheerful as if the lord were an invisible ward master who went his rounds but once a week and must find all things at their best i liked all this in the poor rough boys and could have found it in my heart to put down sponge and teapot and preachy little sermon then and there while homesickness and pain had made these natures soft and some good seed might be cast therein to blossom and bear fruit here or hereafter regarding the admission of friends to nurse they're sick i can only say it was not allowed at hurley burley house the one indomitable parent took my ward by storm and held her position in spite of doctors matron and nurse periwinkle though it was against the rules though the culprit was an acid frostbitten female though the young man would have done quite as well without her anxious fussiness and the whole room full been much more comfortable there was something so irresistible in this persistent devotion that no one had the heart to oust her from her post she slept on the floor without uttering a complaint bore joke somewhat of the rudest fared scantily though her basket was daily filled with luxuries for her boy and tended that petulant personage with a never-failing patience beautiful to see i feel a glow of moral rectitude in saying this of her for though a perfect pelican to her young she pecked and cackled i don't know that pelicans usually express their emotions in that manner most obstreperously when others invaded her premises and led me a weary life with george's tea rusks george's foot bath george's measles and george's mother till after a sharp passage of arms and tongues with the matron she wrathfully packed up her rusks her son and herself and departed in a ambulance scolding to the very last this is the comic side of the matter the serious one is harder to describe for the presence however brief of relations and friends by the bedside of the dead or dying is always a trial to the bystanders they are not near enough to know the best to comfort yet too near to turn their backs upon the sorrow that finds its only solace in listening to recitals of last words breathed into nurse's ears or receiving the tender legacies of love and longing bequeathed through them to me the saddest sight i saw in that sad place was the spectacle of a gray-haired father sitting hour after hour by his son dying from the poison of his wound the old father hail and hardy the young son passed all help though one could scarcely believe it for the subtle fever burning his strength away flushed his cheeks with color filled his eyes with luster and lent a mournful mockery of health to his face in figure making the poor lad comelier in death then in life his bed was not in my ward but i was often in and out and for dare to the pair were much together saying little but looking much the old man tried to busy himself with book or pen that his presence might not be a burden and once when he set writing to the anxious mother at home doubtless i saw the son's eyes fixed upon his face with a look of mingled resignation and regret as if endeavoring to teach himself to say cheerfully the long goodbye and again when the son slept the father watched him as he had him self-been watched and though no feature of his grave countenance changed the rough hand smoothing the lock of hair upon the pillow the bowed attitude of the gray head were more pathetic than the loudest lamentations the son died and the father took home the pale relic of the life he gave offering a little money to the nurse as the only visible return it was in his power to make her for though very grateful he was poor of course she did not take it but found a richer compensation in the old man's earnest declaration my boy couldn't have been better cared for if he'd been at home and god will reward you for it though i can't my own experiences of this sort began when my first man died he had scarcely been removed when his wife came in her eye went straight to the well-known bed it was empty and feeling yet not believing the hard truth she cried out with a look i never shall forget why where's manuel i had never seen her before did not know her relationship to the man whom i had only nursed for a day and was about to tell her he was gone when McGee the tender-hearted Irishman before mentioned brushed by me with a cheerful it shifted to a better bed he is mrs. Connell come out dear till i show ye and taking her gently by the arm he led her to the matron who broke the heavy tidings to the wife and comforted the widow another day running up to my room for a breath of fresh air and a five minutes rest after a disagreeable task i found a stout young woman sitting on my bed wearing the miserable look which i had learned to know by that time seeing her reminded me that i had heard of someone's dying in the night and his sisters arriving in the morning this must be she i thought i pitted her with all my heart what could i say or do words always seem impertinent at such times i did not know the man the woman was neither interesting in herself nor graceful in her grief yet having known a sister sorrow myself i could have not leave her alone for her trouble in that strange place without a word so feeling heart sick homesick and not knowing what else to do i just put my arms around her and began to cry in a very helpless but hearty way for as i seldom indulge in this moist luxury i like to enjoy it with all my might when i do it so happened i could not have done a better thing for though not a word was spoken each felt the other's sympathy and in the silence our handkerchiefs were more eloquent than words she soon sobbed herself quiet and leaving her on my bed i went back to work feeling much refreshed by the shower though i'd forgotten a rest and had washed my face instead of my hands i mentioned this successful experience as a receipt proved and approved for the use of any nurse who may find herself called upon to minister these wounds of the heart they will find it more efficacious than cups of tea smelling bottles psalms or sermons for a friendly touch and a companionable cry unite the consolations of all the rest for womankind and if genuine will be found a sovereign cure for the first sharp pain so many suffer in these heavy times i am gratified to find that my little sergeant has found favor in several quarters and gladly respond to sundry calls for news of him though my personal knowledge ended five months ago next to my good john i hope the grass is green above him far away there in virginia i place a sergeant on my list of worthy boys and many jovial chat have i enjoyed with the merry-hearted lad who had a fancy for fun when his poor arm was dressed while dr. p poked and strapped i brushed the remains of the sergeant's brown mane shorn sorely against his will and gossiped with all my might the boy making odd faces exclamations and appeals when nerves got the better of nonsense as they sometimes did i'd rather laugh and cry when i must sing out anyhow so just say that bit from dickens again please and i'll stand it like a man he did for mrs cluppins chad band and sam weller always helped him through thereby causing me to lay another offering of love and admiration on the shrine of the god of my idolatry though he does wear too much jewelry and talk slang the sergeant also originated i believe the fashion of calling his neighbors by their afflictions instead of their names and i was rather taken aback by hearing them bandy remarks of this sort with perfect good humor and much enjoyment of the new game hello old fish is off again how are you rheumatize will you trade apples ribs i say miss p may i give typhus a drink of this look here no toes lend us a stamp there's a good failure etc he himself was christened baby b because he tended his arm on a little pillow and called it his infant very fussy about his grub with sergeant b and much trotting of attendance was necessary when he partook of nourishment anything more irresistibly wedle sim i never saw and constantly found myself indulging him like the most weak-minded parent merely for the pleasure of seeing his blue eyes twinkle his merry mouth break into a smile and his one hand execute a jaunty little salute that was entirely captivating i am afraid that nurse p damaged her dignity frolicking with this persuasive young gentleman though done for his well-being but boys will be boys is perfectly applicable to the case for in spite of years sex and the prunes and prisms doctrine laid down for our use i have a fellow feeling for lads and always owed fate a grudge because i wasn't a lord of creation instead of a lady since i left i have heard from a reliable source that my sergeant has gone home therefore the small romance that but of the first day i saw him has blossomed into its second chapter and i now imagine dearest jane filling my place tending the wounds i tended brushing the curly jungle i brushed loving the excellent little youth i loved and eventually walking alter word with the sergeant stumping gallantly at her side if she doesn't do all this and no end more i'll never forgive her and sincerely pray to the guardian saint of lovers that baby b may prosper in his wooing and his name belong in the land one of the lively episodes of hospital life is the frequent marching away of such as are well enough to rejoin their regiments or retake themselves to some convalescent camp the ward master comes to the door of each room that is to be thinned reads off a list of names bids their owners look sharp and be ready when called for and as he vanishes the rooms fall into an indescribable state of topsy turviness as the boys begin to black their boots bright and spurs if they have them overhaul knapsacks make presents are fitted out with needfuls and well why not kissed sometimes as they say goodbye for an all human probability we shall never meet again and a woman's heart yearns over anything that has clung to her for help and comfort i never liked these breakings up of my little household though my short stay showed me but three i was immensely gratified by the handshakes i got for there's somewhat painful cordiality assured me that i had not tried in vain the big prussian rumbled out his unintelligible edu with a grateful face and premonitory smooth of his yellow moustache but got no further for someone else stepped up with a large brown hand extended and this recommendation for our very faulty establishment we're off mammon i'm powerful sorry for i had no idea an orispital was such a jolly place hope i'll get another ball somewhere is easy so i'll come back and be took care on again mean ain't it i didn't think so but the doctrine of inglorious ease was not the right one to preach up so i tried to look shocked failed signally and consoled myself by giving him the fat pin cushion he had admired as the cutest little machine ago in then they fell into line in front of the house looking rather wan and feeble some of them but trying to step out smartly and march in good order though half the knapsacks were carried by the guard and several leaned on sticks instead of shouldering guns all looked up and smiled or waved their hands and touched their caps as they passed under our windows down the long street and so away some to their homes in this world and some to that in the next and for the rest of the day i felt like rachel mourning for her children when i saw the empty beds and missed the familiar faces you ask if nurses are obliged to witness amputations and such matters as part of their duty i think not unless they wish for the patient is under the effects of ether and needs no care but such as the surgeons can best give our work begins afterwards when the poor soul comes to himself sick faint and wandering full of strange pains and confused visions of disagreeable sensations and sights then we must soothe and sustain tend and watch preaching and practicing patience till sleep and time have restored courage and self control i witnessed several operations for the height of my ambition was to go to the front after a battle and feeling that the sooner i enured myself to trying sights the more useful i should be several of my mates shrunk from such things for though the spirit was wholly willing the flesh was inconveniently weak one funeral lady came to try her powers as a nurse but a brief conversation eliciting the facts that she fainted at the sight of blood was afraid to watch alone couldn't possibly take care of delirious persons was nervous about infections and unable to bear much fatigue she was mildly dismissed i hope she found her sphere but fancy a comfortable band box on a high shelf would best meet the requirements of her case dr z suggested that i should witness a dissection but i never accepted his invitations thinking that my nerves belonged to the living not to the dead and i had better finish my education as a nurse before i began that of a surgeon but i never met the little man skipping through the hall with oddly shaped cases in his hand and an absorbed expression of countenance without being sure that a select party of surgeons were at work in the dead house which idea was a rather trying one when i knew the subject was some person whom i had nursed and cared for but this must not lead anyone to suppose that the surgeons were willfully hard or cruel though one of them remorsefully confided to me that he feared his profession blunted his sensibilities and perhaps rendered him indifferent to the sight of pain i am inclined to think that in some cases it does for though a capital surgeon and a kindly man dr p through long acquaintance with many of the ills flesh is heir to had acquired a somewhat trying habit of regarding a man and his wound as separate institutions and seemed rather annoyed that the former should express any opinion upon the letter or claim any right in it under his care he had a way of twitching off a bandage and giving a limb a comprehensive sort of clutch which though no doubt entirely scientific was rather startling than soothing and highly objectionable as a means of preparing nerves for any fresh trial he also expected the patient to assist in small operations as he considered them and to restrain all demonstrations during the process here my man just hold it this way while i'm looking to it a bit he said one day to Fitz g putting a wounded arm into the keeping of a sound one and proceeding to poke about among bits of bone and visible muscle in a red and black chasm made by some infernal machine of the shot or shell description poor Fitz held on like a grim death a shame to show fear before a woman till it grew more than he could bear in silence and after a few smothered groans he looked at me imploringly as if to say i wouldn't ma'am if i could help it and fainted quietly away dr p looked up gave a compassionate sort of cluck and poked away more busily than ever with a nod at me and a brief never mind be so good as to hold this till i finish i obeyed cherishing the while a strong desire to insinuate a few of his own disagreeable knives and scissors into him and see how he liked it a very disrespectful and ridiculous fancy of course for he was doing all that could be done and the arm prospered finally in his hands but the human mind is prone to prejudice and though a personable man speaking french like he born parley vu and whipping off legs like an animated guillotine i must confess to a sense of relief when he was ordered elsewhere and suspect that several of the men would have faced a rebel battery with less trepidation than they did dr p when he came briskly in on his morning round as if to give us the pleasures of contrast dr z succeeded him who i think suffered more in giving pain than did his patients in enduring it for he often paused to ask do i hurt you and seeing his solicitude the boys invariably answered not much go ahead doctor though the lips that uttered this amiable fib might be white with pain as they spoke over the dressing of some of the wounds we used to carry on conversations upon subjects foreign to the work in hand that the patient might forget himself in the charms of our discourse christmas eve was spent in this way the doctor strapping the little sergeant's arm i holding the lamp while all three laughed and talked as if anywhere but in a hospital ward except when the chat was broken by a long drawn oh from baby b and abrupt request from the doctor to hold the lamp a little higher please or an encouraging most through sergeant from nurse p the chief surgeon doctor oh i was told refused the higher salary greater honor and less labor of an appointment to the officer's hospital around the corner that he might serve the poor fellows at hurley burley house or go to the front working their day and night among the horrors that succeeded the glories of a battle i liked that so much that the quiet brown-eyed doctor was my special admiration and when my own turn came had more faith in him than in all the rest put together although he did advise me to go home and authorize the consumption of blue pills speaking of the surgeons reminds me that having found all manner of fault it becomes me to celebrate the redeeming feature of hurley burley house i had been prepared by the accounts of others to expect much humiliation of spirit from the surgeons and to be treated by them like a doormat a worm or any other meek and lowly article whose mission it is to be put down and walked upon nurses being considered as mere servants receiving the lowest pay and it's my private opinion doing the hardest work of any part of the army except the mules great therefore was my surprise when i found myself treated with the utmost courtesy and kindness very soon my carefully prepared meekness was laid upon the shelf and going from one extreme to the other i more than once expressed a difference of opinion regarding sundry messes it was my painful duty to administer as eight of us nurses chance to be off duty at once we had an excellent opportunity of trying the virtues of these gentlemen and i am bound to say they stood the test admirably as far as my personal observation went dr. o's stethoscope was unremitting in its attentions dr. s brought his buttons into my room twice a day with the regularity of a medical clock while dr. z filled my table with neat little bottles which i never emptied prescribed browning bedoed me with cologne and kept my fire going as if like the candles in saint peter's it must never be permitted to die out waking one cold night with a certainty that my last spark had pined away and died and consequently hours of coughing were in store for me i was amazed to see a ruddy light dancing upon the wall a jolly blaze roaring up the chimney and down upon his knees before it dr. z whittling shavings i ought to have risen up and thanked him on the spot but knowing that he was one of those who liked to do good by stealth i only peeped at him as if he were a friendly ghost till having made things as cozy as the most motherly of nurses could have done he crept away leaving me to feel as somebody says as if angels were a watching of me in my sleep though that species of wild fowl do not usually descend in broad cloth and glasses i afterwards discovered that he split the wood himself on that cool january midnight and went about making or mending fires for the poor old ladies in their dismal dens thus causing himself to be felt a bright and shining light in more ways than one i never thanked him as i ought therefore i publicly make a note of it and further aggravate that modest md by saying that if this was not being the best of doctors and the gentlest of gentlemen i shall be happy to see any improvement upon it to such as which to know where these scenes took place i must respectfully declined to answer for hurley burley house has ceased to exist as a hospital so let it rest with all its sins upon its head perhaps i should say chimney top when the nurses felt ill the doctors departed and the patients got well i believe the concern gently faded from existence or was merged into some other and better establishment where i hope the washing of 300 sick people is done out of the house the food is eatable and mortal women are not expected to possess an angelic exemption from all wants and the endurance of truck horses since the appearance of these hasty sketches i have heard from several of my comrades at the hospital and their approval assures me that i have not let sympathy and fancy run away with me as that lively team is apt to do when harnessed to a pen as no two persons see the same thing with the same eyes my view of hospital life must be taken through my glass and held for what it is worth certainly nothing was set down in malice and to the serious minded party who objected to a tone of levity in some portions of the sketches i can only say that it is a part of my religion to look well after the cheerfulness of life and let the dismal shift for themselves believing with good sir thomas more that it is wise to be merry in god the next hospital i enter will i hope be one for the colored regiments as they seem to be proving their right to the admiration and kind offices of their white relations who owe them so large a debt a little part of which i shall be so proud to pay yours with a firm faith in the good time coming tribulation periwinkle end of hospital sketches by louisa may alcott this recording by erin elliott st louis missouri