Florence Nightingale, the Angel of the Crimea: A Story for Young People

All about Lea Hurst, in many and many a pleasant cottage home, those little gifts are treasured to-day like the relics of some blessed saint; which indeed is just what they are. The saint is still living, and some of the children of the school feasts are living, too, and now in their age will show with pride and joy the gifts they received long ago from the hands of the beloved Miss Florence.

As Florence grew up to womanhood she found more and more work to do. There were mills and factories in the neighborhood of Lea Hurst; and in the hosiery mills, especially, hundreds of women and girls were employed, many of whom lived on the Nightingale estate.

She may have been seventeen or eighteen when she started her Bible class for the young women of the district, holding it in the tiny ancient chapel at Lea Hurst which I described in the first chapter. Gathering the girls around her, she would read a chapter from the Bible, and then give them her thoughts about it, and explain the difficult passages; then they would all sing together, her sweet, clear voice leading the hymns. Here is another memory very precious to the old women who were once those happy girls. They love to tell "how beautifully Miss Florence used to talk."

Long years after, when Miss Nightingale, spent with her noble labors, would come to Lea Hurst for a time of rest and refreshment, the daughters of these girls counted it a high privilege to gather on the lawn under her window and sing to her as she sat in the room above; and would go home proud and happy as queens if they had seen the saintly face smiling from the window.

Shall I try to show you Florence Nightingale at seventeen? Her face was little changed from that of the girl we saw in the cottage, cheering old Goody Brown. She still wore her hair brushed smoothly "Madonna-wise" on either side her face; often, now, she wore a rose at the side, tucked in among the shining braids or coils. You would think her frocks very queer if you saw them to-day, but then they were extremely pretty; full skirts (no crinoline! that was to come later) and full sleeves, with broad flat collar of lace or embroidery. When she went to church or to make visits she wore a spencer, a kind of full plaited jacket with a belt, something like a Norfolk jacket – only different! and a Leghorn bonnet. You have seen pictures of the Leghorn bonnets of the Thirties and Forties; "coal-scuttles," some people called them, and they were something the shape of a scuttle. Some of them were enormous in size, and they look queer enough now in the pictures, or – if your grandmamma had a way of keeping things – in the "dress-up" trunk or cupboard in the attic. But people who were young in those days tell me that they were extremely becoming, and that a pretty face never looked prettier that when it peeped out from the depths of a huge straw "coal-scuttle."

When Florence rode on horseback, her habit was so long that it nearly touched the ground (that is, if she followed the fashion of the day, but I should not wonder a bit if she and her mother were too sensible!) and she wore a round, broad-brimmed hat with long ostrich plumes. I remember a picture of the Princess Royal (afterwards Empress Frederick of Germany), in a costume like this, which I thought one of the most beautiful things I ever saw, so I shall imagine Florence, on an afternoon ride with the squire, let us say, dressed in this way; but when scampering about on her pony, I trust, she wore a less cumbrous costume.

You will remember that the Nightingales spent the winter at Embley Park, in Hampshire. Here, too, Florence was busy in good and helpful work. At Christmas time she found her best pleasure in giving presents to young and old among the poor people about her, in getting up entertainments for the children, training them to sing, arranging treats for the old people in the poorhouse. On Christmas Eve the village carol singers would come and sing on the lawn; old English carols, that had been sung by generation after generation. Poor Anthony Babington over at Lea Hall may have listened on Christmas Eve to the same sweet old songs.

As Joseph was a-walking,He heard an angel sing,"This night shall be the birthnightOf Christ our heavenly King."His birth-bed shall be neitherIn housen nor in hall,Nor in the place of paradise,But in the oxen's stall."He neither shall be rockèdIn silver nor in gold,But in the wooden mangerThat lieth in the mold."He neither shall be washenWith white wine nor with red,But with the fair spring waterThat on you shall be shed."He neither shall be clothèdIn purple nor in pall,But in the fair white linenThat usen babies all."As Joseph was a-walking,Thus did the angel sing,And Mary's son at midnightWas born to be our King.Then be you glad, good people,At this time of the year;And light you up your candles,For His star it shineth clear.

Then who so glad as Florence to call the singers in and bid them welcome and "Merry Christmas!" and aid in distributing the mince pies and silver coins which were always their due.

When Florence was fairly "grown up," other things came into her life, the gay and merry things that come to so many girls. Mr. Nightingale was a man of wealth and position, and liked his wife and daughters to have their share in the gayeties of the county. So there were many parties, at Embley and elsewhere, and Florence danced as gayly, I doubt not, as the other girls. She went to London, too, and she and her sister were presented to Queen Victoria, and had their share of the brilliant society of the time.

But much as she may have enjoyed all this for a time, still her heart was not in it, and she soon tired, I fancy, of dancing and dressing and visiting. Already her mind was turning to other things, already her clear eyes were looking forward to other ways of life, other methods of work.

CHAPTER IV.

LOOKING OUT

Step by step, and all unconsciously, Florence Nightingale had been training her hand and eye to follow the dictates of her keen mind and loving heart. Now, grown a young woman, she began to think seriously how she should apply this training. What should she do with her life? Should she go on like her friends, in the quiet pleasant ways of country life? The squire's daughter was busy enough, surely. Every hour of the day was full of useful, kindly work, of happy, healthy play; should she be content with this? Her heart told her that she was not content. In her friendly visiting among the sick poor she had seen much misery and suffering, far more than she and all the other kindly ladies could attempt to relieve. She felt that something more was needed; she began to look around to see what was being done in the larger world.

It was about this time that she met Elizabeth Fry, the noble and beautiful friend of the prisoner. Mrs. Fry was then an elderly woman, with all the glory of her saintly life shining about her; Florence Nightingale an earnest and thoughtful girl of perhaps eighteen or twenty. It is pleasant to think of that meeting. I do not know what words passed between them, but I can almost see them together, the beautiful stately woman in her Quaker dress, the slender girl with her quiet face and earnest eyes; can almost hear the young voice, questioning, eager and ardent; the elder answering, grave and sedate, words full of weight and wisdom, of sweetness and tenderness. This interview was one of the great moments of Florence Nightingale's early life.

A little later than this, in 1843, she met another person whose words and counsel impressed her deeply; and of this meeting I can give you a clearer account, for that person was my own dear father, Dr. Samuel G. Howe. Some ten years before this my father had decided to devote his life to helping people who needed help. He had established a school for the blind in Boston; he had brought Laura Bridgman, the blind, deaf mute, out of her loneliness and taught her to read, write, and talk with her fingers; the first time this had ever been done with a person so afflicted. He had labored to help the prisoners and captives in the North, and the slaves in the South; in short he was what is called a philanthropist, that is, one who loves his fellow-men and tries to help them.

My father and mother were traveling in England soon after their marriage, and were invited by Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale to spend a few days at Embley Park. One morning Miss Nightingale (for so I must call her now that she is a woman) met my father in the garden and said to him:

"Dr. Howe, you have had much experience in the world of philanthropy; you are a medical man and a gentleman; now may I ask you to tell me, upon your word, whether it would be anything unsuitable or unbecoming to a young Englishwoman, if she should devote herself to works of charity, in hospitals and elsewhere, as the Catholic Sisters do?"

My father replied: "My dear Miss Florence, it would be unusual, and in England whatever is unusual is apt to be thought unsuitable; but I say to you, go forward, if you have a vocation for that way of life; act up to your aspiration, and you will find that there is never anything unbecoming or unladylike in doing your duty for the good of others. Choose your path, go on with it, wherever it may lead you, and God be with you!"

It was in this spirit that Miss Nightingale now began to train herself for her life work.

It is hard for you children of to-day to imagine what nursing was in the early part of the nineteenth century. To you a nurse means a trim, alert, cheerful person in spotless raiment, who knows just what to do when you are ill, and does it in the pleasantest possible manner; you are glad when she comes into the room, sorry when she leaves. But this pleasant person did not exist in those days, except in the guise of a Catholic Sister of Charity. The other nurses were for the most part coarse and ignorant women, often cruel, often intemperate. When you read "Martin Chuzzlewit" you will find out more about them than I can tell you. But "Martin Chuzzlewit" was not written when Miss Nightingale determined to find out the condition of nursing in England and on the Continent. She first spent some months in the London hospitals, and then visited those in Scotland and Ireland. She was horrified at what she found there; dirt and misery and needless suffering among the patients, drunkenness and ignorance and brutality among the nurses. Then she turned to the Continent and found a very different state of things. The hospitals were clean and cheerful, and the Sisters of Mercy in their white caps and aprons were as good and kind and capable as our trained nurses to-day.

Up to this time these good sisters had been the only trained nurses in Europe; but in Germany Miss Nightingale found a Protestant sisterhood which was working along the same lines, and in a more enlightened and modern way; these were the Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth, the pupils of Pastor Fliedner.

This good man – one of the best men, surely, that ever lived – was the son of a Lutheran minister. His father was poor, and Theodore had to work his way through college, but this he did cheerfully, for he loved work. He studied very hard and also gave lessons, sawed wood, blacked boots, and did other odd jobs. When his clothes began to wear out he sewed up the holes with white thread, all he had, and then inked it over. He loved children, and on the long tramps he used to take in vacation time he was always collecting songs and games, and teaching them to the children.

When he was twenty-two years old Theodore Fliedner became pastor of a small Protestant parish at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine. The people were so poor that they could do little either for their church or themselves, so the young pastor set out on foot to seek aid from other Christian people. He traveled in Germany, Holland and England, and everywhere people felt his goodness and gave him help. In London he met Elizabeth Fry, and the noble work she was doing among the prisoners at Newgate made a deep impression on him. He determined to do something to help the prisoners in Germany, especially the poor women, who, after being imprisoned for a certain time, were cast upon the world with no possession save an ill name.

In his little garden stood an old summerhouse, partly ruinous, but with strong walls. With his own hands the good pastor mended the roof and made the place clean and habitable. He put in a bed, a table and a chair, and then prayed that God would send to this shelter some poor soul who needed it.

One night a homeless outcast woman came to the door, and the pastor and his wife bade her welcome, and took her to the clean pleasant room that was all ready.

In this humble way opened the now famous institution of Kaiserswerth. Other poor women soon found out the friendly shelter; in a short time a new and larger building was needed, and more helping hands beside those of the good pastor and his devoted wife. The good work grew and grew; some of the poor women had children, and so a school was started; the school must have good teachers, and so a training school for teachers was opened.

But most of all Pastor Fliedner wished to help the condition of the sick poor; three years after the first opening of the summerhouse shelter in the garden he founded the Deaconess Hospital. We are told that it was opened "practically without patients and without deaconesses." He obtained the use of part of a deserted factory, and begged from his neighbors old furniture and broken crockery, which he mended carefully, and put in the big empty rooms. He had only six sheets, but there was plenty of water to wash them, and when the first patient, a poor suffering servant maid, came to the door, she was made comfortable in a spotless bed, in a clean though bare room.

I wish I could tell you the whole beautiful story, but it would take too long. By the end of the year there were sixty patients in the hospital, and seven deaconess nurses to care for them. To-day there is a deaconess hospital or home in almost every town in Germany, and thousands upon thousands of sick and poor people bless the deaconesses, though they may never have heard the name of Pastor Fliedner.

CHAPTER V.

WAITING FOR THE CALL

Miss Nightingale spent two periods of training at Kaiserswerth. When she left it finally, good Pastor Fliedner laid his hands on her head and gave her his blessing in simple and earnest words; and she carried with her the love and good wishes of all the pious and benevolent community.

I wish we had a picture of her in her deaconess costume. The blue cotton gown, white apron and wide collar, and white muslin cap tied under the chin with a large bow, must have set off her pensive beauty very sweetly. She always kept a tender recollection of Kaiserswerth, and says in a letter: "Never have I met with a higher love and a purer devotion than there."

On her way home, Miss Nightingale spent some time with the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in Paris. Here she saw what was probably the best nursing in the world at that time; and she studied the methods in her usual careful way, not only in the hospitals, but in the homes of the poor and suffering, where the good sisters came and went like ministering angels. She had still another opportunity, and this an unsought one, of learning what they had to teach, for she fell ill herself, and was tenderly cared for and restored to health by these skillful and devoted women.

Returning to England, she spent some time in the quiet of home, and as her strength returned, took up her old work of visiting among the sick and poor of the neighborhood. But this could not keep her long. It was not that she did not love it, and did not love her home dearly, but there were other benevolent ladies who could do this work. She realized this, and realized too, though perhaps unconsciously, that she could do harder work than this, and that there was plenty of hard work waiting to be done. She soon found it. A call came asking her to be superintendent of a Home for Sick Governesses in London, and she accepted it at once.

Did you ever think how hard governesses have to work? Did you ever think how tired they must often be, and how their heads must ache – and perhaps their hearts, too – when they are trying to teach you the lessons that you – perhaps again – are not always willing to learn? Well, try to remember, those of you who have your lessons in this way! Remember that you can make the teaching a pain or a pleasure, just as you choose; and that, after all, the teacher is trying to help you, and to give you knowledge that some day you would be very sorry not to have.

In the days of which we are speaking, governesses had a much harder time than nowadays, I think. For one thing, there were not so many different ways in which women could earn their bread. When a girl had to make her own living she went out as a governess almost as a matter of course, whether she had any love for teaching or not, simply because there was nothing else to do. So the teaching was often mere drudgery, and often, too, was not well done; and that meant discontent and unhappiness, and very likely broken health to follow.

The Harley Street Home, as it was then called, was founded to help poor gentlewomen who had lost their health in this kind of life. When Miss Nightingale came to it, things were in a bad condition, owing to lack of means and good management. The friends of the institution were discouraged; but discouragement, was a word not to be found in Miss Nightingale's dictionary. There was no money? Well, there must be money! She went quietly to work, interested her own friends to subscribe, then talked with the discouraged people, restoring their confidence and inducing them to renew their subscriptions; and soon, with no fuss or flourish of trumpets, the money was in hand.

Then she proceeded, just as quietly, to reorganize the whole institution; engaged competent nurses, arranged the daily life of the inmates, planned and wrote and worked, every day and all day, till she had brought order out of chaos, and made the home, instead of a place of disorder and discontent, one of comfort, peace, and cheerfulness.

You must not think that this was light or pleasant work. Sick and nervous and broken-down women are not easy to deal with; a hospital (for this is what the home really was) is not an easy thing to organize and superintend. It meant, as I have said, hard and vexatious work every day and all day; and I dare say that often and often, when night came, Florence Nightingale lay down to rest more weary than any of her patients.

At length her health gave way under the strain; she broke down, and was forced to give up the work and go home to Embley for a long rest.

It was here, in her own home, amid her own beautiful fields and gardens, that the call came which summoned her to the great work of her life.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TRUMPET CALL

Willie, fold your little hands;1Let it drop – that "soldier" toy;Look where father's picture stands —Father, that here kissed his boyNot a month since – father kind,Who this night may – (never mindMother's sob, my Willie dear)Cry out loud that He may hearWho is God of battles – cry,"God keep father safe this dayBy the Alma River!"Ask no more, child. Never heedEither Russ, or Frank, or Turk;Right of nations, trampled creed,Chance-poised victory's bloody work;Any flag i' the wind may rollOn thy heights, Sevastopol!Willie, all to you and meIs that spot, whate'er it be,Where he stands – no other word —Stands– God sure the child's prayers heard —Near the Alma River.Willie, listen to the bellsRinging in the town to-day;That's for victory. No knell swellsFor the many swept away —Hundreds, thousands. Let us weep,We, who need not – just to keepReason clear in thought and brainTill the morning comes again;Till the third dread morning tellWho they were that fought and —fellBy the Alma River.Come, we'll lay us down, my child;Poor the bed is – poor and hard;But thy father, far exiled,Sleeps upon the open sward,Dreaming of us two at home;Or, beneath the starry dome,Digs out trenches in the dark,Where he buries – Willie, mark!Where he buries those who diedFighting – fighting at his side —By the Alma River.Willie, Willie, go to sleep;God will help us, O my boy!He will make the dull hours creepFaster, and send news of joy;When I need not shrink to meetThose great placards in the street,That for weeks will ghastly stareIn some eyes – child, say that prayerOnce again – a different one —Say "O God! Thy will be done,By the Alma River."

Open your atlas at the map of Russia. Look down toward the bottom, at that part of the great empire which borders on the Euxine or Black Sea; there you will find a small peninsula – it is really almost an island, being surrounded on three sides by water – labeled "Crimea." It is only a part of one of the smallest of Russia's forty-odd provinces, the province of Taurida; yet it is one of the famous places of history, for here, in the years 1854 and 1855, was fought the Crimean War, one of the greatest wars of modern times.

Russia and Turkey have never been good neighbors. They have always been jealous of each other, always quarreling about this or that, the fact being that each is afraid of the other's getting too much land and too much power. In these disputes the other countries of Europe have generally sympathized with Turkey, feeling that Russia had quite enough power, and that if she had more it might be dangerous for all of them. Some day you will read in history about the Eastern Question and the Balance of Power, and will find out just what these meant in the Fifties; but this is all that you need know now, in order to understand what I am going to tell you.

In 1854 Turkey, feeling that Russia was pressing too hard upon her, called upon the other European powers to help her. The result was that England, France, Sardinia (now a part of Italy, but then a separate kingdom), and Turkey made an agreement with one another, and all together declared war upon Russia.

England had been at peace with all the world for forty years, ever since the wars of Napoleon, which were closed by the great victory of Waterloo. The English are a brave race; they had forgotten the horrors of war, and remembered only its glories and its victories; and they sprang to arms as joyously as boys run to a football game. "Sharpen your cutlasses, and the day is ours!" said Sir Charles Napier to his men, just before the British fleet sailed; and this was the feeling all through the country.

The fleets of the allied powers gathered in the Black Sea, forming one great armada; surrounded the peninsula of the Crimea, and landed their armies. In September, 1854, was fought the first great battle, by the Alma River. The allies were victorious, and a great shout of joy went up all over England. "Victory! victory!" cried old and young. There were bells and bonfires and illuminations; the whole country went mad with joy, and for a short time no one thought of anything except glory, waving banners and sounding trumpets. But banners and trumpets, though a real part of war, are only a very small part. After a little time, through the shouting and rejoicing a different sound was heard; the sound of weeping and lamentation, not only for the hundreds of brave men who were lying dead beside the fatal river, but for the other hundreds of sick and wounded soldiers, dying for want of care.

There had been gross neglect and terrible mismanagement in the carrying on of the war. Nobody knew just whose fault it was, but everything seemed to be lacking that was most needed on that desolate shore of the Crimea. The English troops were in an enemy's country, and a poor country at that; whatever supplies there were had been taken by the Russian armies for their own needs. Food and clothing had been sent out from England in great quantities, but somehow, no one could find them. Some supplies had been stowed in the hold of vessels, and other things piled on top so that they could not be got at; some were stored in warehouses which no one had authority to open; some were actually rotting at the wharves, for want of precise orders as to their disposal. The surgeons had no bandages, the doctors no medicines; it was a state of things that to-day we can hardly imagine. Indeed, it seemed as if the need were so great and terrible that it paralyzed those who saw it.

"It is now pouring rain," wrote William Howard Russell to the London Times, "the skies are black as ink, the wind is howling over the staggering tents, the trenches are turned into dykes; in the tents the water is sometimes a foot deep; our men have not either warm or waterproof clothing; they are out for twelve hours at a time in the trenches; they are plunged into the inevitable miseries of a winter campaign – and not a soul seems to care for their comfort, or even for their lives. These are hard truths, but the people of England must hear them. They must know that the wretched beggar who wanders about the streets of London in the rain, leads the life of a prince compared with the British soldiers who are fighting out here for their country.