Cherry gave the pillow a poke and sleepily sat up. She shook her short, black curls off her red cheeks, and wriggled to the edge of the bed to see out the window. She was in the one place where a lively young nurse never expected to be — home! She was right here in her own room, in her own house, in her own small town of Hilton, Illinois. Her gay read-and-white room with its sun-filled windows was a highly satisfactory place to be, this sweet-smelling June morning, especially after traipsing with the Army Nurse Corps from the Pacific across the Atlantic, with flights in between, and then being a veterans’ nurse besides.

“How do I like my new job?” Cherry grinned and spooned ice from her water tumbler into her coffee cup. “I love it Dad, in spite of the heat.”

Cherry’s young pretty mother laughed. “If I’d known you wanted iced coffee for breakfast, darling, I would have fixed you a pitcher of it. But it’s a good idea. Never have I known it to be so hot during the last week of June.”

Three weeks ago Cherry had started to work as nursing supervisor of the Wayside Rest Home which was situated on the Bluewater Highway about twenty miles from her home town, Hilton, Illinois. The morning after Cherry began her new job, her parents had left on a motor trip and had just returned the night before.

“Tell us more about the patients,” Mrs. Ames said. “We got home so late last evening there wasn’t time to chat. But it’s only seven o’clock, Cherry. You don’t have to leave for a half-hour.”

“Well,” Cherry began, “you both know Mrs. Nellie Harmon. You were there last month when she underwent a tracheotomy at the Hilton Hospital. She doesn’t need any nursing car, except that her tracheal tube has to be taken out once a day. We use pipe cleaners to make sure it isn’t clogged, sterilize it, and replace it every morning. She’s a wonderful patient and has decided to make the Wayside her permanent home.”

Edith Ames nodded. “I can understand that. She has no children and has been a widow for years. What about that boy who broke his leg while vacationing at the Bluewater summer camp? I read about the accident in the copy of the County News you sent us, Cherry. As I recall, his parents are famous photographers.”

“That’s right,” Cherry said. “They’re in South America on an important assignment and made arrangements by long-distance phone for Ricky to be brought to the Wayside as soon as he was discharged from the hospital. His leg is in a walking cast, which he calls his cement sock.”

William Ames guffawed. “Pipe cleaners and a cement sock! It sounds like the kind of teen-age jargon Midge Fortune uses. Makes no sense to a businessman like me.”

“Ricky Cartright,” Cherry said, clutching her dark curls in mock dismay, “and Midge Fortune are two of a kind. Ricky’s room is on the ground floor, and he shares an adjoining bath with Bob Porterfield whom he hero-worships. Bob is awfully good to Ricky, otherwise we’d all go out of our minds.

“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.”

The rising bell clanged, Cherry carefully wrapped the covers around her ears, turned over and went back to sleep.

When she awoke again, her eyes fell on the clock and she leaped wildly out of bed. She had overslept a whole half-hour! It was really late! Half-asleep, she dashed automatically for the maple chest of drawers and collided with a chair instead. Then Cherry remembered. Of course — this wasn’t her old room — this was her new room in Crowley, the residence for seniors and graduate nurses! Starting this morning she was a senior — and she was late! Cherry scrambled into her clothes as the clock ticked loudly and warningly. She ran to the closet and pulled out a crisp blue and white striped uniform, with black chevrons on the shoulder. Late or not, Cherry stopped for breath and a moment’s gloating over those senior chevrons.

Then she dashed over to the mirror and slammed her nurse’s cap on her head. A breathless girl of twenty looked back at her — a slim, lovely girl with black eyes and black curls, and cheeks and lips so red they had earned her her name. She struggled to get her apron tied, but the bow balked. Outside in the corridor, instead of the usual bedlam of nurses, there was a pronounced silence — they all had left for breakfast long ago! “It’s still me,” Cherry marveled at her reflection. “Cherry Ames, from Hilton, Illinois, a senior and not changed a bit! Still tardy!”

Cherry sat cross-legged on her suitcase and tugged. There! The two stubborn locks finally clicked shut. This would make her new uniforms look like accordions and she mourned for the new blue dance dress. But at least they were in. Cherry puffed and with a toss of her head sent the dark brown curls off her glowing cheeks. Then she sat bolt upright on the suitcase and gasped.

“How do I look?” said Midge from the doorway. Billowing over her small figure was Cherry’s gray probationer’s uniform and crackling white apron, miles too big for her. From around the collar, her freckled face peered out, grinning impishly.

“Midge Fortune!” Cherry exploded. “You thirteen-year-old hazard! Unhand that uniform right away! Do you want to make me miss my train?” She darted after Midge and wormed her out of the dress. “And now I’ll have to battle with that suitcase again!” she groaned. She gave the squirming Midge a little shake. “Honestly, if you weren’t Dr. Joe’s daughter, I’d cut you up for stew and feed you to my worst enemy!”

“You haven’t got a worst enemy,” Midge pointed out calmly. She folded the garments with care and bravely attacked the suitcase. “And besides,” Midge went on, with a fine disregard for any connection, “your new red suit is the best-looking thing in Hilton.” She looked at Cherry admiringly.

And Cherry was well worth admiring. She was slender and healthy and well-built; she moved with a proud erect posture that made her seem beautifully tall and slim. Her eyes and her short curly hair were very dark, almost black — the clear-cut black that glistens. Groomed to crisp perfection, Cherry was as vivid as a poster in her red wool sports suit. And her face fairly sparkled with warmth and humor.