“It’ll take me months.” He noticed her phrasing. She would do it. He could see it in her eyes.
He didn’t know where she’d find the time—he didn’t know how she’d managed to make the pair he now placed on the table between them. “When did you make these?”
She took a long sip of coffee, which gave him a hint of the answer. “I couldn’t sleep last night. Once I got the idea, I couldn’t sleep until they were done. This place is starving for color, Dr. Parker. Can’t you see that? I just had to do something.” She reached out and fingered one of the small pink fluffs. “They made Meredith so happy.” Miss Landway looked up at him. “And they made all the other girls so miserable.”
He couldn’t help but offer her a smile. “In your defense, it doesn’t take much in this heat. The smallest thing can set them off. Even Mrs. Smiley can lose her delightful charm.” That last remark surprised him—Daniel hadn’t joked about Mrs. Smiley’s dour personality in months.
“She is quite the heavy hand,” Miss Landway replied with a sparkle returning to her eyes.
“She is very good at what she does. Her job is enormous. If you don’t realize that now, you will soon. I’m not so sure her firm hand isn’t absolutely necessary in order to get things done.” He picked up his own cup. “Surely an army nurse can grasp that.”
Miss Landway smirked. It wasn’t an expression Daniel often attributed to women, but it applied in this case. “Not this army nurse.” She thought for a moment. “I’ll find a way, you know.”
“A way to what?”
She nodded toward the door. “To shower those girls in a rainbow of colored socks. You just watch. My mama always said I could teach a mule how to be stubborn.”
Daniel believed it. “Really?”
“If I can give each girl socks in as many colors as I can, provided they all get the same number of socks, do I have your permission to do so?”
He didn’t see how this would help, but then again he didn’t see how he could say no. “Yes. But only if your regular duties do not suffer and only if the gifts are equal for all.”
Miss Landway stuck out her hand. “Dr. Parker, you have a deal.”
He found himself shaking her hand. The odd feeling in the pit of his stomach forced him to add, “Miss Landway, what will you do if the boys want socks, as well?”
It was a joke, but she didn’t take it as such. She gave his hand a comically forceful shake. “I’ll just knit faster, Dr. Parker.”
Land sakes if he didn’t believe her.
* * *
Dr. Parker had been right—a weekend started with such discontent quickly dissolved into a marathon of unpleasantness. Ida prayed hard during the Home’s simple Sunday church service that her impulsive gift wouldn’t do much harm, but the lack of classes seemed to allow the children extra time to acquire cuts and scrapes, sore stomachs and aching heads. This was an altogether different kind of nursing care. While the army had been a flood of dire needs, Ida found her current post to be a wearyingly steady drip of little grievances. It required a particular sort of endurance—and a mountain of grace.
She was just cleaning up after the third queasy tummy of the afternoon—a particular torment in this heat—when Ida heard a rap on her door. Mr. Grimshaw towered over a feisty-looking boy of about eight, clutching him by the elbow so hard the lad looked like a marionette strung up by a puppeteer. It wasn’t until Ida let her gaze fall from the dizzying height of Mr. Grimshaw’s face that she noticed the boy’s bloody knuckles.
“Oh my,” she said, reaching for a basin and cloth. “Only one way to get those.”
“I imagine you’ve dealt with a badly thrown punch or two in the army.” Mr. Grimshaw nearly hoisted the boy onto the examining table.
“Usually they come in pairs,” Ida replied, peering at the boy’s angry scowl. “Where’s the other one?”
“Jake Multon is down the hall with Dr. Parker,” Grimshaw replied.
“He’s hurt worse,” crowed the boy, obviously seeing himself as the victor in the scuffle. “I hope he has the shiner for a...ouch!”
Mr. Grimshaw had pinned the boy’s good arm with his spindly fingers. “That’s enough of that. You’ll both be sweating it out in the laundry room for a week if I have my say.”
Ida couldn’t help but groan right along with the boy. In this weather, she couldn’t think of a worse punishment than standing over enormous vats of hot water washing the orphanage’s endless stream of dirty linens. “Maybe not.”
That raised one of Grimshaw’s bushy dark eyebrows. “And why not?”
Ida poured water into the basin and pointed downward, instructing the boy to submerge his bloody knuckles. The resulting yelp answered Grimshaw’s inquiry more effectively than any explanation Ida could offer. “Pain aside, young Mr....”
“Loeman. Tony Loeman.” The boy hissed his name through gritted teeth.
“Young Mr. Loeman here will run the risk of infection until the broken skin heals. So unless he can man the laundry vats with one hand, you’ll need to find another way for him to pay his debt to society.” She handed a cake of soap to the boy. “Scrub when you can stand it. While you’re at it, how about you explain what brought this on. Or does Mr. Grimshaw already know?”
To Ida’s surprise, both teacher and student gained a look of embarrassed reluctance at the question. Their expressions connected the boy’s name in Ida’s memory, and she stepped back to park a hand on one hip. “No.”
“Jake was making fun of Merrie’s socks.”
“While I admire your efforts to defend your baby sister’s honor,” Grimshaw chided, “slugging Jake Multon was a poor way to go about it.”
Ida felt as if the world had spun into ridiculous cyclones around one small act of kindness. “It was just a pair of socks!” she declared, more to the whole world than to her present company. She frowned at the boy. “You threw a punch over a pair of baby booties?”
“He started it.”
Ida looked up at Mr. Grimshaw. “How do y’all survive Christmas?”
“It ain’t much fun, but...”
“Scrub!” Ida cut Tony off with the command. She was beginning to see why the Parker Home for Orphans had run through its share of nurses. At this rate, she’d be apologizing clear through to Easter. “Mr. Grimshaw, would you step outside with me for a moment?”
Grimshaw gave Loeman a look that would pin a tiger in its place and then reached clear across the room to open the infirmary door with ease. “Of course, Nurse Landway.”
Pulling the door shut, Ida kept one eye on Loeman through the glass as she peered up to the teacher. “I’m dreadfully sorry to have caused such a ruckus, Mr. Grimshaw. Believe me, I had no idea the trouble those booties would cause.”
Grimshaw blinked, his face splitting into a smile that looked somehow alarming on his lanky features. “I thought it rather cute, truly. Seems a shame how a spot of kindness gets so poorly repaid.”
Ida hadn’t expected his reaction. “Why thank you, Mr. Grimshaw. But it seems to me you are doing the paying.” She cast a glance at Loeman, now wincing as he gingerly swiped the cake of soap across his knuckles. It stung, no doubt about that, but keeping wounds clean was absolutely essential in this moist heat. “I hadn’t thought about there being siblings in here.”
Grimshaw’s features softened further. “Loeman’s one of the sadder cases, actually. His pa’s been out of work so