Redheaded Sue Barton left her position as Superintendent of Nurses at the Springdale, New Hampshire, Hospital, in order to raise a family. Now she and Dr. Bill have three children: six-year-old Tabitha and the four-year-old twins, Johnny and Jerry. Sue is happy in her job as wife and mother until she goes to a reunion of her class in nursing school, where the accomplishments of others make her feel as if she is “stagnating.”

This Sue Barton story tells how Sue discovered the importance of her own job. She nurses the neighborhood; she finds work for a crippled farmer; she pinch-hits for the visiting nurse; she helps bring the artist Mona Stuart and her teen-age daughter Cal together. And always something is happening at home for Sue and Bill and their faithful Veazie Ann to cope with — Jerry’s strange tantrums, Johnny’s disappearance in the woods with his little friend Anne, Tabitha’s attempt to run away. Are Sue’s training and abilities wasted on all these daily and personal small problems? Her customary humor and warm good sense help her decide.

At twenty-three, Sue Barton was a high-spirited and courageous young nurse with a temper that matched her red hair. She had graduated from a great metropolitan hospital, served with distinction in the Henry Street Settlement in New York, and incidentally she had fallen in love with Dr. Bill Barry, whom she had first known as an interne [sic].

Sue loved her work in the wards, the discipline and efficiency of the operating room and the friendships she had won among her patients. When Dr. Bill first proposed, Sue felt that she could not give up her professional life. But Bill was persistent and at last she decided to marry him and to help him with his country practice.

But the marriage has to be postponed, Bill becomes an object of hostility, a typhoid epidemic which he cannot control threatens his reputation, and Sue suddenly finds herself fighting tooth and nail with all the courage and training at her command to save the man she loves. Here is a story of the nursing career, with the excitement, the laughter, and the authenticity which have distinguished the earlier Sue Barton books.

Here is a refreshing and authentic story of a nurse’s life. In it redheaded, vivacious Sue Barton finishes her training and goes on to the many experiences, both humorous and exciting, that a pretty young nurse can meet in a great modern hospital.

In the very beginning of the book Sue gets mixed up in a minor mystery of the hospital, and we find that although she and her friends are more mature than they were as students, they are still able to get into occasional trouble with the Head Nurse. Exceedingly interesting episodes are those that deal with Sue’s serious work, including her first experience in the operating room, and the operation when she assists the brilliant but fiery-tempered doctor for whom nothing is ever right. Later she has her training in the care of newborn babies and their mothers. Deeply immersed as she is in her work, Sue struggles with the conflict of her love for her career and her growing affection for Dr. Barry, who continues to show as much interest in the pretty young nurse as he did when she was just a student.

This book will be read with enjoyment by all who wish to know the inside story of the exciting dramatic life that goes on in a big hospital.

That Friday seemed like every other July day and not at all like an end to anything. Great puffs of white cloud drifted innocently across the hazy summit of Mt. Washington, the afternoon was drowsy with the song of insects and the smell of pines. A breeze, fresh and clean from the wooded slopes of New Hampshire’s Presidential Range, brought a pleasant touch of coolness. It was a day to enjoy and there was no hint of trouble in it.

Sue paused halfway up the back-porch steps and turned, a slender figure in white slacks and green blouse. Her copper-red hair was brushed softly back from a vivid face which refused to tan regardless of sun and wind, and her brown eyes were quiet with contentment. She smiled, half in tenderness, half in amusement, as she looked back.

Her five-year-old twins, Johnny and Jerry, with Maxl the dachshund, were entangled in a wriggling heap on the lawn. Her daughter Tabitha, aged seven, was swinging under the big maple, dark pigtails flying as she swooped. From the tool shed came a bass rumble slightly off key — the voice of Sue’s husband, Dr. William Barry, humming Old Man River while he collected his fishing kit. Indoors and somewhat muffled by distance Sue heard a gurgle followed by a prolonged squeak and she laughed. The baby was awake.

The late afternoon sunlight spilled down through the maples, touching into brilliance the red heads of the tumbling little boys, and dappling Tabitha’s happy face.

She began a new life in a big hospital.

Sue looked for a place to escape from the terrible Mrs. Pasquale. There it was — a small door — probably a broom closet. Sue jerked open the door. She stepped in and — dropped!

Down and down she fell. Then she struck bottom — soft, yielding bottom. She had fallen down the laundry chute.

Adventures — comic, exciting, dangerous — mark Sue Barton’s first year as Student Nurse.