The White Linen Nurse

The White Linen Nurse by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott: A charming and humorous romantic novel that explores love, life, and duty. Available for free download in PDF, EPUB, and MOBI formats.

The White Linen Nurse

The White Linen Nurse Summary

The White Linen Nurse by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott is a delightful romantic novel that follows a disillusioned nurse who finds unexpected love and joy. Known for its wit and charm, this tale highlights themes of self-discovery, humor, and compassion. Download this timeless classic in PDF, EPUB, and MOBI formats.

eBook download options

FormatPriceDownload
azw3Free
MobiFree
EpubFree
pdfFree

The White Linen Nurse Excerpt

Dive into the witty and charming opening of Eleanor Hallowell Abbott's The White Linen Nurse. This delightful story introduces us to a spirited young nurse disillusioned with her duties, searching for something more. Enjoy this captivating excerpt:

Chapter I

In the cloistered, sweet-smelling quiet of the big hospital's third-floor linen-room, the White Linen Nurse sat mending a rip in her most elusive undergarment. Except for the faint whir of distant electric fans, the soft scurry of a rat in the ceiling, and the rhythmic sound of the White Linen Nurse's thread-and-needle activities, not a sound disturbed the stillness.

Out of deference to her profession and from sheer youthful habit, her knees dropped unconsciously into an attitude of abject humility. But the expression on her face remained purely secular. She was not kneeling to pray; she was kneeling to sew.

With puckered brow and a tongue creeping with precision from corner to corner of her mouth, she sat browsing placidly on her one personal thought. It was not an inspiring thought. It was not even particularly interesting. But it was essentially her own.

"When I finish this job," mused the White Linen Nurse, "I'm going to run right straight out into the street and get run over by an automobile."

With exaggerated intentness, she reexamined the threadbare quality of the garment across her knee. "I don't think much of this underclothes proposition anyhow," she added grumpily.

Suddenly, from the nearest corridor, a shrill voice broke into her absorption. "Hi, you—White Linen Nurse! What's that you're sitting there thinking about?"

With bland indifference, the White Linen Nurse lifted her head. In the sunny doorway loomed the dark and foreboding figure of the Senior Surgical Intern. "You look exactly like the cat that swallowed the canary," he snapped irritably.

The White Linen Nurse turned and shook her fist at him with mock serenity. "You look exactly like the canary!" she retorted.

With a gesture of irritation, the Senior Surgical Intern disappeared. The White Linen Nurse returned peacefully to her sewing. "Surely nothing could be much easier than to get run over by an automobile," she resumed her musings. "It's just the walking straight out from the curb—that's all. Men do it every day. Women do it! Children do it! Babies in carriages do it! And dogs!"

She stopped sewing and considered dogs. "Not yellow dogs," she reasoned conscientiously, "and not black dogs either. But nice, soft, fluffy, brownish, whitish, blackish, tannish dogs! Dogs with real eyes! Dogs that wag!"

Almost hysterically, she dropped her sewing into her lap and lifted her hands to her ears, as though shutting out a sound only she could hear. In one shuddering second, the entire hideous history of her professional life flashed before her.

It was not that she minded taking care of sick people. She liked them. But the hospital's color scheme—white ceilings, white walls, white floors, white furniture—had finally begun to torment her. Even the sight of her own starched white linen uniform filled her with an aversion she could scarcely endure.

Doctors scowled. Patients groaned. Scrub-women scraped and scrubbed incessantly. She was sick of it all—the weariness, the monotony, the constant mechanical routine. It was all so relentlessly clean, so hopelessly professional.

Worst of all, she thought grimly, she was sick of herself—sick of her own ceaseless competence, sick of her ever-nodding smile, her perpetually uplifting platitudes, her irreproachably antiseptic hands.

And then, in the stillness of the linen-room, she thought suddenly of flowers. She thought of color—of yellow, gold, and green. She thought of fields. She thought of dogs, and soft fur, and wagging tails.

"If only I could be something else!" she cried aloud, wrenching her needle sharply from the cloth. "If only I could do something else! Go somewhere else! Be someone else!"

With a gasp of rebellion, she leapt to her feet and kicked the offending garment across the room. From the threshold came a sudden, startled laugh. "Good heavens, White Linen Nurse!" said the Senior Surgical Intern, reappearing. "What's the matter now?"

The White Linen Nurse whirled around to face him. "I'm tired of this!" she flared. "I'm sick of hospitals and uniforms and scrubbing and scowling and white floors and—"

The Intern grinned. "Well, run along and get married, then," he said cheerfully. "It's the cure for everything."

The White Linen Nurse's face blazed crimson. "Run along and get married!" she scoffed. "With whom, pray?"

"Anybody," said the Intern, with the utmost blandness. "Anybody at all. There's a whole world full of people outside this hospital."

The White Linen Nurse stared at him in scorn. "Huh!" she sniffed. And, dropping back to her knees, she resumed her sewing with new determination.