Womans Endurance | Page 8

hostile to the authorities. I fear I have been indiscreet in what I wrote; shall have straight talk to-morrow, and ask Superintendent to let me resign if I have not his confidence; there must be no suspicion, otherwise I cannot stay. This matter is a load upon my heart.
Busy day; new tents 63, 552a, 50, 40, all with sick children except 552, where young man is very sick.
Called to hospital; Mrs. Retief dying; prayer; expired just after. Hurried to 34, but found I was just too late; Mrs. Ackerman just died.
156; very sad case; mother, Mrs. Joubert, died this morning, and when I came I found three helpless little ones all alone, and sick too; father in Bloemfontein Camp; the grandmother will provide, I understand.
Had short conversation with Mr. Branders, Superintendent Sunday School, and decided to exhort parents to send children to school.
395; Mrs. Botha very ill; twenty-eight days in bed; advise removal hospital; this afternoon doctor called and said she was dying; she leaves a baby.
Went to few cases with doctor; very interesting; get on well with him.
Visited 239, Ignatius, with malignant growth on arm; must soon die.
Took doctor to see 36; young girl suddenly sick; great misery there; bad ventilation; four others measles.
Funerals this afternoon (about nine); "Hetgeen gij zaait wordt niet levend tenzij dat het gestorven is" (That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die).
Visited hospital to-day, and mean to go regularly each day.
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Tuesday, September 3.--Went to Superintendent first thing to-day; reasonable[29]; long talk; reconciled; thank God.
Found boy in 34 very, very bad; this afternoon stopped bearers on way to morgue tents, and learnt that they were carrying him away; poor little fellow; he suffered so very much!
In 35 there is also great sickness.
27; Mrs. Taljaard; very sick baby; also sick boy; husband commando.
Hospital; read and prayed in the three wards; glad I went; some very seriously ill; so sorry to hear that Miss Hendriks died this morning; she was very bad; spoke to her yesterday, and prayed with her; she enquired restlessly, time after time, "Is dit nog nie vijf uur nie?" (Is it not yet five o'clock?). At five this morning she passed away.
The men's ward quite full; all ages; all were so glad to have me read and pray.
541; Mrs. Steyn; two children gone; very sore; glad I went.
500; Mrs. Schoeman; eight children; two sick; husband Ceylon.
503; Mrs. Robertson; baby dead; two boys sick; husband fighting.
In 418 great misery; Mrs. Herbst ill and three sick children.
In 322 called in to pray for dying baby.
Very busy afternoon; always stopped on way and called in.
Neglected 475.
The poor little mites! the horrid, cruel pneumonia! and there seems to be no saving them when once the pneumonia, grips them.
Mr. Becker took funerals, seventeen; several in blankets.
And so we go forth day by day; the dread whistle; the regular tramp of the bearers to morgue tents, and the slowly winding procession every afternoon.
Called hurriedly to hospital twice; dying girl just brought in; could understand.
Hysterical girl Martie[30], swearing and cursing all round; each nurse in particular, and the whole lot generally.
Old Mrs. Van Zyl, 492, evidently dying.
Called to enquire after old Mrs. Oosthuizen; found she had died soon after last visit.
Pleasant evening; stories of my travels; in Italy once more.
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Wednesday, September 4.--My visits to hospital I love.
That one girl such a sad case; fever and most terrible headache; they say it is sunstroke.
Hysterical girl quiet.
Filth and stench in some tents almost unbearable.
Nos. 34 and 35 very bad; ventilated tent myself; some folks built that way, and sickness becomes their trench behind which they shelter. But I will persist in maintaining that no matter the sickness, no matter the distress and poverty, cleanliness is a possibility anywhere[31]. But what an opportunity for the careless to degenerate!
Managed to get bedstead for Mrs. Van Zyl; fear she won't last long.
I wonder what the safest policy would be when two women pour out their griefs into your ear at the same time. When they simultaneously tell you all about their departed cherubs? Some people selfish in their sorrow. Took little camphor brandy Mrs. Niemand's; tent full lamenting womenfolk; and the helpless babe casting her black eyes from one to another. Some people will insist on anticipating the Almighty (the child is dead, though).
Saw a child to-day the very image of a mouse; two months' illness; large ears; black eyes; thin, bony hands; huddled together.
Very busy afternoon.
Funerals at 4 p.m.; eighteen corpses; "En God zal alle tranen van hunne oogen afwisschen" (And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes).
How can one's heart remain hard? Can one be unmoved when you see weeping, stricken mothers kneeling in anguish beside their infants' graves?
Love, after all, is the greatest and most mysterious of all things.
Explain it