Was this love in disguise — or a threat to her future?

When Nurse Delora Lambert boarded the train for Chicago, she left behind everything she knew and loved. Behind her was the unwanted sympathy of friends who told her it would only be a matter of time before she forgot she’d been jilted two weeks before her marriage.

Would her new job give her the incentive to start anew? And could the unexpected attention of two handsome new acquaintances threaten her firm resolve never to fall in love again?

“Well, now you’re on your own, Cherry Ames,” said the nurse supervisor. “Now you’ll be the one and only nurse responsible for good public health nursing service in this entire county. Just you, Cherry.”

“I’m scared and delighted all at once,” Cherry said. “All those families! We visited only a sampling of them. All those towns and villages!”

Cherry and Miss Hudson had just returned from their last visit together to the twenty-five square miles of Cherry’s county in southeastern Iowa. It was a lovely countryside of thriving farms, where some ten thousand persons lived and worked, and where their children attended rural schools.

“Scared or not,” Cherry said, “I feel I’m off to a good start, Miss Hudson. I learned a lot driving around with you, nursing under your supervision during this training period.”

“I think you’ll do fine,” her supervisor encouraged her. “I’ll visit you regularly, and you’ll come to monthly meetings with my fourteen other county nurses. Between times, if you need any advice or extra help, you can always phone or write me at the regional office upstate. Of course all the specialized facilities of the State Health Department are open to your patients on your request.” Miss Hudson smiled at her reassuringly. “And Dr. Miller, as health officer and your medical adviser, will confer with you frequently here in your office.”

Cherry had been assigned this rather bare office on the second floor of the county courthouse in the small, quiet town of Sauk. Sunlight sifting through the trees outside shone on file cabinets and tables stacked with county health records and pamphlets about community health.

“I’m glad,” Cherry admitted, “that Dr. Hal Miller is young and as new on his county job as I am on mine. Makes it easier to work comfortably together.”

Cherry stopped in front of the Hilton Hospital and glanced at her wrist watch. She was not due to be on duty for twenty minutes. She stood for a moment, enjoying the sunshine and the fresh, sweet air of spring. What a glorious morning!

In the sky overhead a small plane was circling about. Shading her eyes with her hand, Cherry watched it it descend slowing in widening spirals and bank to come in for a landing at the new private airport outside Hilton.

“I wouldn’t mind being up in a place myself this morning,” Cherry thought dreamily.

“Nurse Ames, you have a very bad case of spring fever,” she heard a voice boom.

Startled, she turned her head and saw Dr. Watson, a wide grin on his face, beside her. “Check that fever at the door,” he told her, laughing. “It’s highly contagious.”

“Good morning, Doctor. You sneaked up or I would have heard you, “she accused him as he started up the walk. Her eyes followed his clumsy, bearlike figure to the entrance. She had a warm spot in her heart for Dr. Ray Watson who was in charge of Men’s Orthopedic Ward. He had been patient, understanding, and always cheerful when she was a nurse on his ward.

Cherry was now one of the Emergency nurses and was often the nurse on one of his cases. Dr. Watson handled accident cases involving orthopedics, such as fractures and other conditions which caused interference with the use of bones and joints.

Cherry forgot the sunny sky and the plane and walked through the door into the antiseptic small of the hospital. The quick change from the air outside made her nose prickle as always, but the odor quickly became familiar and she felt completely at home.

“Good morning, Miss Ames.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Peters,” Cherry returned the greeting from the head nurse on Orthopedic Ward.

“Whenever you’ve had enough of Emergency,” Mrs. Peters said with a smile, “remember, I can always use an extra nurse.”

“I’ll say we can,” declared Nurse Ruth Dale, as she came in the door and fell in step with Cherry. “We’re always short of nurses, you know that.”

“Hospitals are always short of nurses,” agreed Cherry. They went on down the corridor toward the section where the nurses had their lockers. “It’s a complaint as common as the common cold, or haven’t you heard?” Cherry asked airily.

Ruth made a face at her, taking the teasing in good nature. She and Cherry had been on duty in the same ward and had been good friends for a long time. Ruth was frank to say that Cherry was shining proof that beauty and brains went together. Cherry’s dark-brown, almost black eyes, black curly hair, and red cheeks, which had won her the name of Cherry, always called forth admiring remarks. Her patients appreciated her cheerful presence.

“This,” said Cherry, “is pretty wonderful!” She beamed at the others around the festive table with its autumn fruits and flowers. Her family beamed back at her. “For once all four Ameses are together, and isn’t it nice?”

“I feel a little selfish, not asking some of the relatives for Thanksgiving dinner,” Mrs. Ames remarked.

“Just us is fine,” said Charlie. “Besides, that leaves us more turkey.”

Mr. Ames, who could carve only when standing up, muttered that it was about times Charlie took over this chore. But when Charlie obligingly stood up to help, their father said, “Never mind, thanks. No chores for either of you kids when you’re only home for the holiday.”

“I won’t make any speeches about what it’s worth to me to be here today,” Cherry said. “Even for a few days’ leave.”

She had flown to Hilton, Illinois, from New York and this evening she would have to fly back again. If her old friend Ann Evans hadn’t had family matters to tend to, she might be able to stay at home longer. On the other hand, if Ann Evans Powell hadn’t needed someone in a hurry to substitute for her, Cherry would never have secured the nursing job in a New York department store, two weeks ago. And it was a fascinating job.

Cherry wished the train would go faster. She was still out of breath from running for it. She pressed her cheek against the window to admire the green fields and fertile farms through which the local train poked along. Cherry’s mother, who knew the headmistress of the Jamestown School for Girls from their own school days, had warned her that the school was deep in the country. Fortunately, it was not too far from Hilton, Illinois, which meant that she would be able to spend all school holiday vacations at home.

As the boarding school nurse, she would have full charge of the school infirmary. It would be fun to work with young people and a refreshing change from her last job — an unexpectedly thrilling assignment as nurse to a country doctor — something new, something different. If there was anything Cherry enjoyed, it was meeting new people. She was glad that she was a nurse because nursing, in its many branches, provided an Open sesame to new and exciting experiences — and because more importantly, a nurse can help to alleviate human suffering. She remembered what her twin brother Charlie had said jokingly when he put her on this train in Hilton:

“Don’t set this boarding school on its ear. Wherever you go, twin, you make things happen, but you bring doggoned good nursing too.”

It gave Cherry a good, warm feeling to know that her pilot brother, and her parents, too, were proud of her. They had made that clear during this past week, when they’d had such a satisfying family reunion, in their big, old-fashioned house. The week’s rest had left Cherry’s cheeks glowing rose-red and her black eyes sparkling. Even her jet-black curls shone with extra good health. She felt fully ready to tackle her new job.