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her capacity for spilling things, for losing her spectacles, and for puttering

 
An Old-Fashioned Nurse.

      She was old, — in fact, she was a great-grandmother, — but she still retained the vigor of middle age, and pursued her profession of nursing the sick. Her face was seamed and wrinkled, the wrinkles being so criss-crossed that one was involuntarily reminded of the tanned alligator-skin used in making belts and satchels; but her hair retained its natural dark color, and she kept it in order by means of her patient’s brushes and combs. She had her peculiarities, as most old nurses have; she did not require a bottle which she could “put to her mouth when she felt so dispoged,” but she had many superstitions, she was morbidly economical, and she used words not to be found in the dictionary. The accidental breaking of a looking-glass, according to her, boded misfortune to the family, as did also the advent of a strayed pet crow which came and perched about the back porch for a week or two during her stay. In her opinion, the howling of a dog under the window meant a death in the family, the spilling of salt was a sure sign of ill luck, and the crowing of a cock before the door signified that some one was coming. Her excessive economy was equalled only by her acquisitiveness. She had worn her black lace veil for forty years, her “reps” dress, in whose pattern red gourds chased each other over a yellow ground, dated back to a past generation, and her other garments were chosen for their lasting quality. Of these she seemed to have as many layers as an onion. The layer exposed to view when she prepared herself for rest at night by her patient’s bedside consisted of a quilted skirt and a bodice of common blue and white striped bed-ticking.
      In her leisure moments she wandered about the house and lot, communing with herself regarding the family’s waste and extravagance. She picked up strings, nails, and tin cans; she gathered three shrivelled apples that hung on a tree at the back end of the lot; and she dug down into a pile of ashes upon which the rains of months had beaten, tasted them, and, finding them still strong and good, upbraided the mistress for not extracting the lye and making soap. She frequently went into the kitchen to collect and save seeds of the vegetables prepared for dinner. Nothing that was offered to her came amiss. She accepted old clothes with avidity, odd shoes and joints of rusty stove-pipe had a value in her eyes, also crippled um [522] brellas and rubber boots with holes in them. She went and came several times in the dusk of the evening, removing her accumulated spoils to her own home.
      She was not consciously mirth-provoking in her talk; her conversation ran mostly toward lugubrious recitals of sickness, death, and misfortune, but her patient extracted amusement from some of her words and expressions. She said “conjesture” for “conjecture,” “watery music” for “watery mucus,” and, occasionally, when the night was stormy or unusually dark, she remarked, “This is a gashly night.” She told of a little grandchild of hers who had the colic every evening regularly for three weeks, “Sunday too,” and remarked incidentally of the husband of one of her acquaintances, “He was a bakery.” One night when she was snoring unusually loud, her wakeful patient called to her and gently requested her not to snore. Starting up on the sofa, she plucked her night-cap from her right ear and exclaimed with indignation, “Swore! I never swore in my life!” Then, becoming aware of her mistake, she said, “Don't tell Mr. L” (the local editor); “he will put it in his paper.” Besides these traits peculiar to herself she had many common to old-fashioned nurses, but was excelled probably by none in her capacity for spilling things, for losing her spectacles, and for puttering.
L. C. J.

“An Old-Fashioned Nurse,” in Lippincott’s Magazine 1:29 (May 1881) : 521-522 : link
 

25 September 2025