Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/62

 If you fail, you must pay your own way home. And what is more, you will not be told why you failed!

Now the word comes that you are to report for duty. Pack your trunk carefully, not failing to put in a stout little strong-box with a padlock, for the superintendent assumes no responsibility for your property unless you place money, rings, etc., in the office safe, and you are away from your room or dormitory most of the time.

On reaching the city where the training-school is located do not go to a hotel, and then, with the air of conferring a favor, write to the superintendent that you are in town and ready to come at her call. She has called you. Go directly to the hospital—and drop your individuality on its front stoop. From the moment you enter you are a mere cog in this great machine of alleviation and mercy.

Just here let me tell you an incident in the first day of school of a now successful nurse. She entered the tiny room assigned to her on the top floor of the dormitory building, flung her suitcase, her umbrella, magazine, etc., on the narrow bed and seated herself thereon to remove her hat and veil. She was just tucking the latter into her diminutive locker, when—enter the superintendent of nurses! This per-