from Anne of Green Gables, chapter 18, Anne to the Rescue (L.M. Montgomery)

Just as Anne emerged triumphantly from the cellar with her plateful of russets came the sound of flying footsteps on the icy board walk outside and the next moment the kitchen door was flung open and in rushed Diana Barry, white-faced and breathless, with a shawl wrapped hastily around her head. Anne promptly let go of her candle and plate in her surprise, and plate, candle, and apples crashed together down the cellar ladder and were found at the bottom embedded in melted grease, the next day, by Marilla, who gathered them up and thanked mercy the house hadn’t been set on fire.

“Whatever is the matter, Diana?” cried Anne. “Has your mother relented at last?”

 “Oh, Anne, do come quick,” implored Diana nervously. “Minnie May is awful sick—she’s got croup. Young Mary Joe says—and Father and Mother are away to town and there’s nobody to go for the doctor. Minnie May is awful bad and Young Mary Joe doesn’t know what to do—and oh, Anne, I’m so scared!”

Matthew, without a word, reached out for cap and coat, slipped past Diana and away into the darkness of the yard.

“He’s gone to harness the sorrel mare to go to Carmody for the doctor,” said Anne, who was hurrying on hood and jacket. “I know it as well as if he’d said so. Matthew and I are such kindred spirits I can read his thoughts without words at all.”

“I don’t believe he’ll find the doctor at Carmody,” sobbed Diana. “I know that Dr. Blair went to town and I guess Dr. Spencer would go too. Young Mary Joe never saw anybody with croup and Mrs. Lynde is away. Oh, Anne!”

“Don’t cry, Di,” said Anne cheerily. “I know exactly what to do for croup. You forget that Mrs. Hammond had twins three times. When you look after three pairs of twins you naturally get a lot of experience. They all had croup regularly. Just wait till I get the ipecac bottle—you mayn’t have any at your house. Come on now.”

The two little girls hastened out hand in hand and hurried through Lovers’ Lane and across the crusted field beyond, for the snow was too deep to go by the shorter wood way. Anne, although sincerely sorry for Minnie May, was far from being insensible to the romance of the situation and to the sweetness of once more sharing that romance with a kindred spirit.

The night was clear and frosty, all ebony of shadow and silver of snowy slope; big stars were shining over the silent fields; here and there the dark pointed firs stood up with snow powdering their branches and the wind whistling through them. Anne thought it was truly delightful to go skimming through all this mystery and loveliness with your bosom friend who had been so long estranged.

Minnie May, aged three, was really very sick. She lay on the kitchen sofa feverish and restless, while her hoarse breathing could be heard all over the house. Young Mary Joe, a buxom, broad-faced French girl from the creek, whom Mrs. Barry had engaged to stay with the children during her absence, was helpless and bewildered, quite incapable of thinking what to do, or doing it if she thought of it.

Anne went to work with skill and promptness.

“Minnie May has croup all right; she’s pretty bad, but I’ve seen them worse. First we must have lots of hot water. I declare, Diana, there isn’t more than a cupful in the kettle! There, I’ve filled it up, and, Mary Joe, you may put some wood in the stove. I don’t want to hurt your feelings but it seems to me you might have thought of this before if you’d any imagination. Now, I’ll undress Minnie May and put her to bed and you try to find some soft flannel cloths, Diana. I’m going to give her a dose of ipecac first of all.”

Minnie May did not take kindly to the ipecac but Anne had not brought up three pairs of twins for nothing. Down that ipecac went, not only once, but many times during the long, anxious night when the two little girls worked patiently over the suffering Minnie May, and Young Mary Joe, honestly anxious to do all she could, kept up a roaring fire and heated more water than would have been needed for a hospital of croupy babies.

It was three o’clock when Matthew came with a doctor, for he had been obliged to go all the way to Spencervale for one. But the pressing need for assistance was past. Minnie May was much better and was sleeping soundly.

“I was awfully near giving up in despair,” explained Anne. “She got worse and worse until she was sicker than ever the Hammond twins were, even the last pair. I actually thought she was going to choke to death. I gave her every drop of ipecac in that bottle and when the last dose went down I said to myself—not to Diana or Young Mary Joe, because I didn’t want to worry them any more than they were worried, but I had to say it to myself just to relieve my feelings—‘This is the last lingering hope and I fear ’tis a vain one.’ But in about three minutes she coughed up the phlegm and began to get better right away. You must just imagine my relief, doctor, because I can’t express it in words. You know there are some things that cannot be expressed in words.”

“Yes, I know,” nodded the doctor. He looked at Anne as if he were thinking some things about her that couldn’t be expressed in words. Later on, however, he expressed them to Mr. and Mrs. Barry.

“That little redheaded girl they have over at Cuthbert’s is as smart as they make ‘em. I tell you she saved that baby’s life, for it would have been too late by the time I got there. She seems to have a skill and presence of mind perfectly wonderful in a child of her age. I never saw anything like the eyes of her when she was explaining the case out to me.”

Anne had gone home in the wonderful, white-frosted winter morning, heavy eyed from loss of sleep, but still talking unweariedly to Matthew as they crossed the long white field and walked under the glittering fairy arch of the Lovers’ Lane maples.

“Oh, Matthew, isn’t it a wonderful morning? The world looks like something God had just imagined for His own pleasure, doesn’t it? Those trees look as if I could blow them away with a breath—pouf! I’m so glad I live in a world where there are white frosts, aren’t you? And I’m so glad Mrs. Hammond had three pairs of twins after all. If she hadn’t I mightn’t have known what to do for Minnie May. I’m real sorry I was ever cross with Mrs. Hammond for having twins.”

from Gaudy Night, chapter 11 (Dorothy L. Sayers)

The only member missing from the Senior Common Room was Mrs Goodwin, whose small son (a most unfortunate child) had come out with measles immediately upon his return to school and again required his mother's nursing.

'Of course she can't help it,' said the Dean, 'but it's a very great nuisance, just at the beginning of the Summer Term.  If I'd only known, I could have come back earlier.'

'I don't see,' observed Miss Hillyard, grimly, 'what else you can expect, if you give jobs to widows with children.  You have to be prepared for these perpetual interruptions.  And for some reason, these domestic pre-occupations always have to be put before the work.'

'Well,' said the Dean, 'one must put work aside in a case of serious illness.'

'But all children get measles.'

'Yes; but he's not a very strong child, you know.  His father was tubercular, poor man - in fact, that's what he died of - and if measles should turn to pneumonia, as it so often does, the consequences might be serious.'

'But has it turned to pneumonia?'

'They're afraid it may.  He's got it very badly.  And, as he's a nervous little creature, he naturally likes to have his mother with him.  And in any case, she'd be in quarantine.'

'The longer she stays with him, the longer she'll be in quarantine.'

'It's very tiresome, of course,' put in Miss Lydgate, mildly.  'But if Mrs Goodwin had isolated herself and come back at the earliest possible moment - as she very bravely offered to do - she would have been suffering a great deal of anxiety.'

'A great many of us have to suffer anxiety in one way or another,' said Miss Hillyard, sharply.  'I have been very anxious about my sister.  It is always an anxious business to have a first baby at thirty-five.  But if the event had happened to occur in term-time, it would have had to take place without my assistance.'

'It is always difficult to say which duty one should put first,' said Miss Pyke.  'Each case must be decided individually.  I presume that, in bringing children into the world, one accepts a certain responsibility towards them.'

'I'm not denying it,' said Miss Hillyard.  'But if the domestic responsibility is to take precedence of the public responsibility, then the work should be handed over to someone else to do.'

'But the children must be fed and clothed,' said Miss Edwards.

'Quite so.  But the mother should not take a resident post.'

'Mrs Goodwin is an excellent secretary,' said the Dean.  'I should be very sorry to lose her.  And it's nice to think that we are able to help her in her very difficult position.'

Miss Hillyard lost patience.

'The fact is, though you will never admit it, that everybody in this place has an inferiority complex about married women and children.  For all your talk about careers and independence, you all believe in your hearts that we ought to abase ourselves before any woman who has fulfilled her animal functions.'

'That is absolute nonsense,' said the Bursar.

'It is natural, I suppose, to feel that married women lead a fuller life,' began Miss Lydgate.

'And a more useful one,' retorted Miss Hillyard.  'Look at the fuss that's made over "Shrewsbury grandchildren"!  Look how delighted you all are when old members get married!  As if you were saying "Aha! education doesn't unfit us for real life after all!  And when a really brilliant scholar throws away all her prospects to marry a curate, you say perfunctorily, "What a pity!  But of course her own life must come first."'

'I've never said such a thing,' cried the Dean indignantly.  'I always say they're perfect fools to marry.'

'I shouldn't mind,' said Miss Hillyard, unheeding, 'if you said openly that intellectual interests were only a second-best; but you pretend to put them first in theory and are ashamed of them in practice.'

'There's no need to get so heated about it,' said Miss Barton, breaking in upon the angry protest of Miss Pyke.  'After all, some of us may have deliberately chosen not to marry.  And, if you will forgive my saying so -'

At this ominous phrase, always the prelude to something quite unforgiveable, Harriet and the Dean broke hastily into the discussion.

'Considering that we are devoting our whole lives -'

'Even for a man, it is not always easy to say -'

Their common readiness confronted their good intention.  Each broke off and begged the other's pardon, and Miss Barton went on unchecked:

'It is not altogether wise - or convincing - to show so much animus against married women.  It was the same unreasonable prejudice that made you get that scout removed from your staircase -'

'I object,' said Miss Hillyard, with a heightened colour, 'to preferential treatment.  I do not see why we should put up with slackness on duty because a servant or a secretary happens to be a widow with children.   I do not see why Annie should be given a room to herself in the Scouts' Wing, and charge over a corridor, when servants who have been here for longer than she has have to be content to share a room.  I do not -'

'Well,' said Miss Stevens, 'I think she is entitled to a little consideration.  A woman who has been accustomed to a nice home of her own -'

'Very likely,' said Miss Hillyard.  'At any rate, it was not my lack of consideration that led to her precious children being placed in the charge of a common thief.'

'I was always against that,' said the Dean.

'And why did you give in?  Because poor Mrs Jukes was such a nice woman and had a family to keep.  She must be considered and rewarded for being fool enough to marry a scoundrel.  What's the good of pretending that you put the interests of the College first, when you hesitate for two whole terms about getting rid of a dishonest porter, because you're so sorry for his family?'

'There,' said Miss Allison, 'I entirely agree with you.  The College ought to come first in a case like that.'

'It ought always to come first.  Mrs Goodwin ought to see it, and resign her post if she can't carry out her duties properly.'  She stood up.  'Perhaps, however, it is as well that she should be away and stay away.  You may remember that, last time she was away, we had no trouble from anonymous letters or monkey-tricks.'

Miss Hillyard put down her coffee-cup and stalked out of the room.  Everybody looked uncomfortable.

'Bless my heart!' said the Dean.

'Something very wrong there,' said Miss Edwards, bluntly.

'She's so prejudiced,' said Miss Lydgate.  'I always think it's a very great pity she never married.' 

Miss Lydgate had a way of putting into language that a child could understand things which other people did not say, or said otherwise.

'I should be sorry for the man, I must say,' observed Miss Shaw; 'but perhaps I am showing an undue consideration for the male sex.  One is almost afraid to open one's mouth.'

'Poor Mrs Goodwin!' exclaimed the Bursar.  'The very last person!'

She got up angrily and went out.  Miss Lydgate followed her.  Miss Chilperic, who had said nothing, but looked quite alarmed, murmured that she must get along to work.  The Common Room slowly cleared, and Harriet was left with the Dean.

'Miss Lydgate has the most terrifying way of hitting the nail on the head,' said Miss Martin; 'because it is obviously much more likely that -'

'A great deal more likely,' said Harriet.