Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1892 — Inefficlent. [ARTICLE]

Inefficlent.

Good-will counts for very little by itself in a sick-room. Of all persons in the world, a nurse must know how to go ahead and do what needs to be done, without questions and without fuss Mrs. Swisshelm had a new appreciation of this truth when she came to need a nurse for herself after wearing herself out in nursing wounded soldiers. When I lay ill, a friend told me of an excellent woman who had come from afar, and tendered her slices to the government. She had parted much influence and spent much effort to get into a hospital as nurse, but had failed. Hearing of my illness, her desire to be useful led her to tender her services. Her generous \offer was accepted, and I was left for an afternoon in her care. I wanted a cup of tea. She went to the kitchen to make it, and one hour after came up with a cup of tea, only this and nothing more, save a saucer. To taste the tea I must have a spoon, and to get one she must go along a hall,' down a long flight of stairs, through another hall and the kitchen, to the pantry. When she had made the trip the tea was so much too strong that a spoonful would have made a cup. She went down again for hot water, and after she had got to the kitchen remembered that she had thrown the water away, thinking it would not be wanted. The fire had gone out, and the woman came up to inquire if she should make a new one, and if so, where she should find kindling. She had spent almost two hours in running to and fro, was all in a perspiration and a fluster, had done me a great deal of harm and no one any good, had wasted all the kindlings for the evening Are, had used teq enough to serve a large family for a meal, and had fairly illustrated a large part of-the hospital service rendered by women oppressed with the nursing mission.-