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bits of old sacking and carpet, and lay them down again, fetch fresh water and fill the kettle; wash the patient and the children, and make the bed.
Every home she has thus cleaned has always been kept so. This is her glory. She found it a pig-sty; she left it a tidy, airy room.
In fact these nurses are so far above their patients, that the poor are 'ashamed that we should see their homes dirty again.'
One woman burst into tears as she said:
'It looks like it did before I was taken ill, and all my troubles came upon me; indeed I used to be clean and tidy, ask the neighbours if I wasn't; but what with sickness and trouble, I let one thing after another get behind, and then it was too much for me altogether. Why, I haven't been able to make my bed properly since I came out of hospital, for I did not seem to have heart or strength to do anything, but I will never let it get into such a state again.'
And she kept her word, the nurse helping daily in the heavier part of the work, when attending to dress the patient's wound, till the woman was able to do it all herself.
In another case, the mother had been two years in bed. The place was a den of foulness. One could cut the air with a knife. The nurse employed two of the little children to collect the foul litter and dirty linen from under the bed and sort it, emptied utensils which had not been emptied for a fortnight (this is common), cleaned the grate, and carried away the caked ashes, washed the children, combed and cleansed their hair, crowded with vermin. Next day, the eldest girl of eight had scoured the place and, perched on a three-legged stool, was trying to wash the dirty linen with her poor little thin arms. A woman, a neighbour, was found to do this.
But the highest compliment of all has to be told. In
