This article was written just after the death of the noted Miss Nightingale.It was late spring-time in England, just when the hawthorn dons its wonderful veil of pink and white along the roadsides, when the lilac bushes are bursting into purple blossom, and the soft turf beneath the stately oaks and beeches is thickly carpeted with daffodils. Then the sun has work to do, like any gardener. That spring he had done it well, for the girl who stood on the terrace of the splendid house of Lea Hurst thought she had never seen the hillsides and the valley and the far-circling moors such a deep, rich, warm green before. This was a very beautiful part of English country, and the girl loved it better each time she came back to it from her other home in the south. It was the rolling, romantic land of Derbyshire, right in the heart of England. Through the valley below slipped the silver river Derwent, a ribbon winding in and out among the hills. Beyond the nearest valley rose gently sloping wooded heights, and towering above them was the bold promontory called Crich Stand. On the other side were little hamlets nestling here and there in the rolling country, each hamlet with its group of thatch-roofed cottages, and each strung like a bead on the chain of a broad white road.
"Oh, but is n't it lovely, Max!" the girl exclaimed, looking down at an Ayrshire terrier who was rubbing himself against a big earthenware jar that held a cluster of pink-and-purple fuchsias.
The dog stopped rubbing and looked at the little lady above him. "Come along," she said; "we 'll see what the garden's done. Come!" And so girl and dog raced around the house to the southern side. The gardens here sloped down in a series of wide terraces joined by stone steps. They lay radiant with colors in the sun. The girl stopped and drew a long breath of delight. Then she ran down the steps and bent above the flowers, murmuring fond messages to each.
There were beds of peonies and wallflowers, rainbow-tinted primulas and pansies, delicate forget-me-nots and slender lilies, mignonette and heliotrope and jasmine, and border bushes of candytuft in bloom. They seemed like old friends to the girl; she knelt beside them, and touched her face to theirs, and whispered how glad she was to be back with them again.
While she was so busied with the flowers two gentlemen came down the stone stairway that led from the library to the flagged terrace of Lea Hurst. "There's Florence," said one of the men to the other. "Give that little daughter of mine flowers or birds or animals of any sort to care for and she's as happy as the day is long."
The other man, who was the vicar of the country church, smiled. "She ought to love such things. How could a girl with the lovely name of Florence Nightingale do otherwise?"
They walked down the steps of the garden. The girl, hearing thei" voices, sprang up and ran to meet them. "Oh, I 'm so glad to see you again, Mr. Ritchie!" she cried. "We 've missed you so much all winter."
"And we have missed you. little Lady Bountiful," said the vicar. "Mrs. Ritchie will be glad to know you 're back in Derbyshire."
"Are you riding home now?" Florence turned impulsively to her father. "Please, sir, may I ride over with him to take tea with Mrs. Ritchie at the vicarage?"
"I 'II see her safely home," said the clergyman.
Mr. Nightingale nodded. "Tell Sanders to saddle your pony and bring him with Mr. Ritchie's horse to the door. I wish I could go, too, but I 've letters to write."
The girl ran to the stables, and a very little later she and the vicar were picking their way down the sloping drive of Lea Hurst to the valley of the winding Derwent. A short time and they were out upon the downs, riding with loose reins, making the wide circle of a flight instead of taking the short way. On every side spread the soft yellow-green reaches of the level uplands, flecked here and there with dark purple patches where clouds were floating across the light of the sun. On and on they went, the vicar on his big horse, Florence, her brown hair flying in the wind, near him on her fleet-footed moorland pony.
The downs were dotted with grazing sheep, and finally the riders came to a place where they found a shepherd, an old bent man, trying to collect his scattered herd by hobbling after them and calling in cracked tones to them. He was working without success; the sheep only scattered farther.
The riders drew up and watched the old man's efforts. The vicar knew him. "Where 's your dog, Roger?" he asked.
"The boys hereabouts have been throwing stones at him, sir," answered the shepherd, "and they've broken his leg, poor beast. He 'll never be good for anything again, and I 'm thinking of putting an end to his misery."
"You mean poor old Cap's leg is broken?" asked Florence. "Oh, can't we do something for him, Roger? It's cruel to leave him all alone in his pain. Where is he?"
"You can't do any good, missy," said the old shepherd, sorrowfully. "I 'll just take a cord to him to-night—that 'll be the best way to ease his pain. I left him lying in the shed over yonder."
Florence looked pleadingly at Mr. Ritchie. "Oh, can't we do something for poor Cap?" she begged.
The vicar, seeing the pity in her face, turned his horse toward the distant shed; but Florence, with a word to her pony, dashed past him. She reached the shed first. Dismounting, she ran inside. In a corner lay the poor moaning sheepdog. Florence knelt down on the mud floor, and, with the greatest care not to hurt him, touched his head with her soft hands and whispered soothing words to him until the dog lifted his big brown eyes and looked gratefully into her face.
The vicar had now come into the shed, and kneeling beside Florence, he examined the dog's leg. After a few minutes he said: "The stone only cut it. The bone 's not broken. A little careful nursing ought to put him all right again."
"Oh, I 'm so glad!" exclaimed Florence. "I love nursing. What should I do first?"
"Well," said the vicar, smiling at the girl's interest, "I should advise a hot compress put on Cap's leg."
"What 's a compress?" asked Florence.
"It 's a bandage made of cloths wrung out of water and laid on the wound," explained Mr. Ritchie.
Delighted at the thought of helping the poor dog, the girl went out of the shed. Very near stood the shepherd's cottage, and lying on the grass in front of it was the shepherd's small boy. She went toward the cottage. "Is your mother at home?" she asked the boy.
He shook his head. "She 's gone to Derby town," he said.
"Well, I want some boiling water," she explained. "Come help me," and without more ado she went into the cottage kitchen.
The boy helped her light a fire, and they soon had the kettle boiling. Florence looked about for cloths for bandages, and saw the old shepherd's clean smock hung up behind the door. "That's the very thing," she exclaimed. "If I tear it up Mama 'll give Roger another." So she took the smock and tore it into strips. Then she told the boy to bring the kettle and a basin, and went back to the shed.
With the help of the vicar Florence soon had the hot bandages placed on Cap's swollen leg. She sat beside him, whispering to him, and calmed him so that he scarcely stirred when she changed the wrappings. At length Mr. Ritchie thought she ought to be going home. "Oh, no," begged Florence. "I want to see him get better. A nurse ought not to leave her patient. The boy can take my pony and ride over and tell them where I am."
The boy departed with his message, and the little nurse stayed with her charge, perfectly happy to be caring for him.
Shortly after sunset old Roger came sorrowfully to the shed. He had a rope in his hand because he thought his faithful friend would never be able to chase the sheep again. But as soon as he entered the shed Cap greeted him with a whine of pleasure, turned his head toward him, and tried to get on his feet.
The shepherd was very much astonished. "Deary me, missy," said he, "why, you 've been doing wonders! I never thought to see the poor dog greet me again."
"Yes, does n't he look better?" said Florence. "You can throw away that rope now, and help me make compresses."
"That I will, missy," agreed Roger, heartily, and kneeling beside the girl and the dog, he fell to work with the strips of cloth and the hot water, helping her as best he could.
"But I shall come again to-morrow, Roger," said Florence when she came to go. "I know Mama will let me when I tell her about Cap. I want to look after him until he 's running about again."
"I hope you will, missy," answered the grateful shepherd. "I hope you will."
Florence gave the dog a final caress and whispered in his ear that she would come again. then she and the vicar left the shed. The boy had come back with her pony, and she monted and was soon flying back across the moors to Lea Hurst.
There were two girls at the manor-house, Florence and Frances, and they were so nearly of an age that they studied and played together. They both loved flowers and animals, and each had her own garden and her own particular pets. But Florence's heart was always touched by the poor beast or bird that had been hurt and had no one to care for it, and by the roadside wild flowers which had a hard time to escape cart-wheels, and the seedlings which had been blown to bare and rocky soil. Mr. Nightingale soon saw that this daughter was a born gardener. When the day's lessons were over she would pick up her little basket, which held a trowel, gardener's scissors, a water-bottle, and a bundle of sharpened sticks, and hasten out of doors. Sometimes he would follow her at a distance, and watch her in the corner of a meadow digging up weeds that grew about the cowslips, or watering a little clump of daffodils that were trying to hold up their heads in the shade of a tree. Often she went far afield, outside the gardens and meadows of Lea Hurst, where the hedges and the flowers were not so well cared for, and here she found plenty of work to do, propping up bruised plants, watering faded ones, and protecting others from the careless cattle. Sometimes she found new flowers, and transplanted some of them to her own garden at home; sometimes she found just the place where she thought lilies or marigolds ought to grow, and there she would plant and tend her charges so that another summer should find them blooming. At home in the evenings her father told her much about flowers, and encouraged her to do all she could to search for old garden flowers which were growing scarce in Derbyshire and to cultivate them, to plant hardy blooms in waste places, to care for wild flowers, and to mend broken hedges. Besides her own formal garden on the terraced slopes of Lea Hurst she soon had a dozen wild gardens scattered through the fields and half a hundred little flower-beds which she visited regularly.
She loved the birds and the animals as much as her flowers. "Florence was born a nurse," said Mr. Nightingale to his wife: "I found her yesterday making a nest in a bush for a robin that had broken a wing. I dare say she intends to try and feed it."
So she did; whenever she found a bird that was hurt, a dog that was lame, any creature that was suffering, she took the care of it to herself, and invented ways by which it might be cured. The family called her "The Little Sister of Mercy," and her father gave her a place in one of the greenhouses for a hospital where she might look after her invalid birds and dogs.
The Squire, as Mr. Nightingale was called, took a great interest in the village that lay at the foot of the slope that was topped by Lea Hurst. With his wife and two daughters he was continually planning picnics for the children, and throwing open the gates of his beautiful manor to them and to all the neighbors. He loved to have them all share in his delight at the exquisite gardens, the perfect velvet lawns, the thick and well-kept hedges of yew and box, and the stalwart old shade-trees that had been the glory of the place for many decades. The great event of the summer was the children's "feast-day," when all the boys and girls met at the school-house and marched in a procession to Lea Hurst, the girls with big bouquets, or "posies" as they called them, in their hands, and the boys with sticks wound with flowers, like small May-poles, carried over their shoulders. The Squire always ordered a band, and this headed the merry march which swept out of the village and trudged up the hill to the great gates of the manor. There the children found tables waiting for them on the lawn, and they had only to camp there to be served with strawberries and cream and cakes and tea like real grown-up guests. After this high tea the band played and the children danced over the lawn and on the floor of a great tent Mr. Nightingale had set up in the garden. The Squire's two daughters were continually inventing new games and leading in all the fun, and at the same time keeping a watchful eye for the smaller children who might tire easily. When the long summer twilight began to fade and the rich purple clouds to gather over the still valley of the Derwent, the band struck up a triumphal march, and the children formed in line again and trooped up to the top terrace of the lawn. Here stood Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale to say good night, and as each guest went by, Florence or Frances gave them a present from a long table on the terrace. Then each girl would bob a curtsy and each boy make a bow, and march on down the hill after the stirring band. So the "feast-day" would come to a successful close, and the lord of the manor entertain his neighbors as was the good old English custom.
It did not take long for the people who lived near Lea Hurst in Derbyshire or in the neighborhood of Embley Park in Hampshire, where the Nightingales spent the autumns and winters, to lose their hearts to "Miss Florence," as they called her. If any one was sick or in trouble, there "Miss Florence" went, carrying flowers or fruit or a present of some sort with her, but always with the greater gifts of her happy smile, soft voice, and gentle, loving touch. The old people at the windows waved their hands to her as she drove down with her mother to Cromford Church, and smiled at the sight of the slender girl, dressed in a light summer muslin, with a silk spencer over it, her sweet face, with the soft brown hair smoothed down each side of it, beaming from the depths of a yellow Leghorn bonnet wreathed with roses.
The Squire's daughter Florence came to be a very "lady of grace" to the poor of the Derwent valley. She would ride her pony over the heath to lonely cottages, with a basket at her saddle-bow filled with puddings and jellies, or carrying an armful of primroses and bluebells to some delicate woman or girl who longed for the wild flowers of the fields and hedge-rows, but could not go to them.
Everything about this girl was sunny. She had been born in the beautiful Italian city of Florence, the city of flowers, and had been named for it, and it seemed as though she had inherited that city's love of blossoms. Her gardens and the opportunity she had to nurse stricken pets were the chief joys of her childhood, and they were joys which grew as she grew up.
There were few good nurses in England in that day, and no schools where they could be taught. Florence Nightingale met a remarkable Quaker woman named Elizabeth Fry, who was trying to help women who were in prison. Together they visited many English hospitals and studied the methods of nursing. These methods were of the poorest, most useless sort.
At Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, in Germany, a school for nurses had just been started, and there Florence Nightingale went to study. She learned a great deal and returned home to teach others. After a time England went to war with Russia in the Crimea, in eastern Europe, and Miss Nightingale knew that many of the soldiers would lay down their lives there for want of proper nursing in the military hospitals. She felt that this was her call to service, and she offered to take a band of women nurses out to the Crimea to serve through the war.
Before that war had ended Florence Nightingale had come to be as beloved by the British soldiers as the little girl of Lea Hurst had been by her father's neighbors. She was a wonderful nurse, because she was always full of courage and cheerfulness, never tiring, never shirking any labor that would ease suffering. Thousands of wounded men watched for her to pass by their beds in the hospitals, and declared they were better just for the sight of her face or the sound of her voice. She often took charge of men whose wounds the doctors had declared beyond curing, and brought them back to health by her tireless care and patience.
After a time she fell ill of cholera herself, and all England waited for news from her bedside. She recovered and was taken home. She went back to Lea Hurst and rested there, while the whole country called her blessed. When the war was over she returned to the London hospitals.
It was chiefly due to her that the profession of nursing has become the noble work it is to-day. For many years she was one of England's most famous women. King Edward singled her out as the one woman to receive the Order of Merit, and the people of London gave her the freedom of their city. She died last August, having celebrated her ninetieth birthday in May. The Dean of Westminster Abbey asked that she might be buried in England's temple of fame, but in her will she had left other directions. Her memory does not need that honor, for her monument stands in the record of her noble life.
The story of the work of this woman who tended the sick and the poor is one of the most beautiful in history. She asked nothing but the chance to serve, and thereby won the love of all the world. To tend her flowers, to nurse the sick, to serve her fellow-creatures, were the dearest wishes of the girl of Lea Hurst Manor and of the woman we know as Florence Nightingale.
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