“He’s working on it. This wasn’t his first fistfight. That’s why I came down so hard on him.”
Ida could only sigh and stare in at the poor boy. He looked her way for a fraction of a second—likely imagining she and Grimshaw were out here devising hideous forms of punishment—then returned to his painful task.
“I still think it was a fine thing you did. I know Mrs. Smiley will give you no end of grief for it, but I’m glad to see a kindness paid, no matter what the cost.”
After a weekend of awful consequences, the man’s encouragement warmed Ida’s sore heart. “It’s mighty kind of you to say so, Mr. Grimshaw.” She glanced up and down the hallway, again aware of how stark the buildings were. “I’m just so aching to put a dash of color into this place. Children should live in cheerful rooms, don’t you think? Happy, color-filled places?” It seemed an odd thing to say to a man who seemed a study in black and white every day.
“It’s a nice thought, Nurse Landway. Although I could have done with a little less red today.” He peered at a bloody smear on his cuff. “Do hope they can get this out in the wash,” he muttered to himself before returning his attention to Ida. “I must get back to the library, where the boys are learning chess. Please do send Tony back there when he’s done here. While the laundry may not be possible, I’m quite sure Mr. Loeman can play chess with one hand.”
Ida put her hand on the infirmary door. These boys needed some place to channel their energy, but she doubted chess was going to fit the bill. What a complicated minefield of a place the Parker Home was turning out to be. You’re going to have to help me find my way, Father, Ida prayed as she eyed the scowl still filling Tony Loeman’s face. This place makes the army look easy!
Ida raised the frame and set it gently on the nail Mr. MacNeil had placed in the wall above her small desk. She looked back at Leanne Gallows before she adjusted the frame so that it hung straight.
“Perfect,” Leanne said, smiling. “I like the yellow matting—the room needs it.”
“It does.” Ida stepped back to admire the brightly framed copy of the “Nightingale Pledge.” Ida, Leanne and hundreds of nurses before and since them had recited these words at the pinning ceremony that officially welcomed them into the profession. The piece had been framed in a formal cream matting, but last night Ida had salvaged a few inches off the hem of her yellow curtains and redone the mounting. She’d made a promise to herself to add one bit of color to her world every day, even if it was something as small as a hair ribbon. “And here I thought the army had gotten me used to drab.”
“It’s not that bad, is it?” Leanne looked around and shrugged. “Well, then again, I suppose it is. Seems sad to ask children to live like this.” She clearly caught the look in Ida’s eyes, for a smile turned up one corner of her mouth. “Which is why you’re plotting something, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps.”
“Maybe I should remind you about the bit in there about abstaining from mischief,” Leanne teased, crossing her arms over her chest. Leanne had given Ida no small amount of grief over the line in the pledge that read “I shall abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous,” to which Ida had no small amount of trouble adhering.
Ida sat across from her friend. “Socks can hardly be counted as mischief.”
“I thought you told me an actual fistfight had broken out over those baby booties.”
“Well, yes,” Ida admitted, “but we can’t blame that one on the socks. In this awful weather, boys are going to be spoiling for a fight no matter what—the booties were only an excuse. I just hadn’t thought through the implications.”
Leanne laughed. “Imagine that.”
“I’ll have you know I have Dr. Parker’s approval on the idea as long as each girl gets the same number of socks at the same time.”
“I’ve heard of the Parker family, but I don’t really know them. What is Daniel Parker like? You’ve been here a whole eight days. How have you found your new employer?”
Ida didn’t have to think much before replying. “Whopping serious.”
Leanne laughed. “I imagine half the world strikes you as overly serious. So, then, is the good doctor somber serious, or dedicated serious?”
“A bit of both.” Ida looked in the direction of Dr. Parker’s office. The angle of the buildings was such that she could see the windows of his office from her own office windows. She had come down here well past midnight Sunday evening, having forgotten a book she wanted to review, and found his light still on. She knew he left the compound now and then, but other than that he seemed to be continually at his post. “I believe he views his work here as a vocation. He seems to bear the burden of all these youngsters mighty personally. You’d think they’d be fond of him for it.”
Leanne cocked her head to one side. “Aren’t they?”
Ida fiddled an unruly curl escaping from her pinned-up hair. “They like him, but it doesn’t really seem to go much beyond that. It’s not as if they are afraid he’ll harm them in any way, but they don’t look to him for affection—to give it or to receive it. I expect I’ve gotten more hugs in my week here than that man gets all year. Those little arms can’t reach past all that authority to get to the man on the other side, if you ask me.”
“Well, I suppose it takes a certain amount of command to keep a place like this from chaos. Soldiers mostly do as they are told. Not so with children.”
Ida leaned in. “That’s just it—they do obey like little soldiers. Take suppers, for instance. The meals here are deathly quiet. Makes me skittish to hear only the sound of so many little mouths chewing. If I could tell Dr. Parker one place to lighten things up, I’d sure start with the meals.”
“Will you? Start telling him where to lighten things up?”
Ida blew out a breath and sat back in her chair. “I just won the sock skirmish—or so I think. I might need to ponder when to wage my next battle.”
“An army fights on its feet.” Leanne recited the saying often quoted by Red Cross knitters as they had stitched up socks for the boys overseas. “So now you’re going to start the brightening campaign with a rainbow of little socked feet?”
“Lots of ’em.”
“You told me this post doesn’t give you a lot of idle time. I admit it’s a wonderful idea, but Ida, it could take you a year or more before you get enough socks done.”
Ida leaned in just as Leanne’s face showed the idea coming to her, as well. “That’s why you’re going to help me. You did it once before at Camp Jackson. Now we need a much more colorful version of our band of knitters right here.”
“Volunteer knitters like we had at the Red Cross. Of course!” Leanne tapped her forehead. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that first. It’d be so easy.”
“If gals would knit for soldiers, they’d surely knit for children.”
Ida watched her friend purse her lips in thought. She knew that look. “I imagine I could have a dozen ladies lined up by tomorrow if I set my mind to it.”
“And don’t I know what you can do when you set your mind to something.” Ida grabbed Leanne’s hand. “So you’ll help?”
Leanne’s eyes sparkled. “Just try to stop me. But we’ll need details—how many girls, their shoe sizes, that sort of thing.”
Opening her desk, Ida handed her a sheet of paper. “I’m miles ahead of you. We have twenty-six girls. I told them I was inspecting their shoes for mites last night at bedtime, but