Cherry Ames at Spencer

Cherry took a deep breath as the taxi started up the hill. Now she and Josie could see Spencer Hospital, a huge cluster of white buildings on top of the hill. Spencer was really a city in itself with its trim yards, broad avenues, landscaped lawns, and well-kept tennis courts. And to Cherry, in her probationer days, it had seemed like a terrifying labyrinth. But now the very sight of it rapidly drawing nearer filled her with the memories of the three thrilling years she had spent there with her friends who had trained and worked with her until graduation.

Cherry closed her dark eyes, remembering that first week when she, an awe-struck “probie,” had met the classmates who were to share so many exciting experiences with her. She could see them now in their humble gray probationers’ dresses which they, as student nurses, discarded for blue and white uniforms, white stockings, and broad black velvet bands on the cuff of their caps. They had herded together as probies, and they had kept in touch with one another ever since.

There had been red-haired, full-of-fun, Gwen Jones; earnest, rather rabbity-looking, but really very efficient, Josie Franklin; plump Bertha Larsen; hazel-eyed Vivian Warren; Mai Lee, the lovely Chinese-American girl; and Ann Evans, now Mrs. Jack Powell. Later, as visiting nurses, they had all, except Ann, shared an apartment in New York’s Greenwich Village, No. 9, the headquarters of the Spencer Club.