The monthly nurses were from respectable
American families, mostly spinsters although
who never had received the slightest
intelligent[?] training or been guilty of wide experience.
Their leisure and need of money seemed
their diploma for service. The babies
in their sparse neighborhoods they had
ushered into this bale ^{perhaps they had} - nursed a long
summer of typhoid fever in their homes perhaps
or rather sat by, with their knitting
while the germs ran their race with a
constitution - ^this was the sum of their
tuition. In the main they all seem
to me as persons come to oblige, claiming
a little more than equality - anxious
to secure first their own good sleep and
regular[?] meals - meeting on Sundays -
constant reading of books and papers - free
discussion of parish, village, and
neighbors regardless of the nerves or
safety of the patient. Rather grudgingly
offering the Doctor's prescriptions, forcibly
recommending some original compound ^concoction