ew out the finger, and the quiet
hospital air would be rent with shrieks of lost illusion. Then Annie
Petowski or Jennie Goldstein or Maggie McNamara would watch the
Nurse with open hostility and defiance, and her rustling exit from
the ward would be followed by swift cessation of cries, and, close
to Annie or Jennie or Maggie's heart, there would be small ecstatic
gurglings--and peace.

In her small domain the Nurse was queen. From her throne at the
record-table, she issued proclamations of baths and fine combs, of
clean bedding and trimmed nails, of tea and toast, of regular hours
for the babies. From this throne, also, she directed periodic
searches of the bedside stands, unearthing scraps of old toast,
decaying fruit, candy, and an occasional cigarette. From the throne,
too, she sent daily a blue-wrappered and pig-tailed brigade to the
kitchen, armed with knives, to attack the dinner potatoes.

But on this Easter morning, the queen looked tired and worn. Her
crown, a starched white cap, had slipped back on her head, and her
blue-and-white dress was stained and spotted. Even her fresh apron
and sleevelets did not quite conceal the damage. She had come in for
a moment at the breakfast hour, and asked the Swede, Ellen Ollman,
to serve the breakfast for her; and at half past eight she had
appeared again for a moment, and had turned down one of the beds and
put hot-water bottles in it.

The ward ate little breakfast. It was always nervous when a case was
"on." Excursions down the corridor by one or another of the
blue-wrappered brigade brought back bits of news:

"The doctor is smoking a cigarette in the hall;" or, "Miss Jones,
the day assistant, has gone in;" and then, with bated breath, "The
doctor with the red mustache has come"--by which it was known that
things were going badly, the staff man having been summoned.

Suggestions of Easter began to appear even in this isolated ward,
denied to all visitors except an occasional husband, who was usually
regarded with a mixture of contempt and scepticism by the other
women. But now the lilies came, and after them a lame young woman
who played the organ in the chapel on Sundays, and who afterward
went from ward to ward, singing little songs and accompanying
herself on the mandolin she carried with her. The lame young woman
seated herself in the throne-chair and sang an Easter anthem, and
afterward limped around and placed a leaflet and a spray of
lilies-of-the-valley