Free Cherry Ames 05 Flight Nurse by Helen Wells Page A

visits to the base. Cherry had arranged for the child to come over with Mrs. Jaynes, during the lull between flights. The nurses had, she explained to Mrs.
    Eldredge in another note, to make their mascot a uniform.
    Making a flight nurse’s uniform in size six was quite a problem. Maggie owned the smallest slate-blue jacket they could find. Cutting it down yielded a small-size jacket and a miniature pair of slacks for the mascot. The girls fitted these to her with precise military tailoring, while small Muriel stood so still she scarcely breathed.
    The big brass buttons for the front of the jacket looked enormous on Muriel. Cherry found, however, that the smaller buttons from cuffs and pockets were just right.
    Maggie and Ann, who were the nimblest with needles, 74
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    did most of this work. Agnes Gray cut down one of her trench caps to perch on the small fair head. Cherry got Wade to drive her into the villages, where she hunted in the modest shops for a boy’s military-looking shirt.
    Wade contributed a regulation tie, from which Muriel acquired three ties, and he insisted on buying a little shoulder-strap bag.
    All this took several days, and several thrilled visits on the mascot’s part. Some of the girls were absent now and then on flights, but fortunately, Cherry had received no flight order as yet. At last the tiny uniform was completed, even to the lieutenant’s bar.
    Cherry, Ann, little Maggie and Agnes Gray dressed the six-year-old in her blue jacket and slacks. They cocked the trench cap to the right, at the precise angle.
    In the little shoulder-strap bag, Cherry put peanuts, a handkerchief and two shiny new American dimes.
    Muriel stood there pale with excitement, and very, very proud.
    “Well!” said Cherry, lifting Muriel to the mirror. “It isn’t every six-year-old who enters the Army as a full-fledged lieutenant!”
    “What’s more,” Agnes pointed out, “Muriel probably is the first little English girl ever to wear an American flight nurse’s uniform.”
    Cherry set Muriel down again. Other nurses in the barracks came filtering in to see the new mascot. Muriel tugged at Cherry’s sleeve. “Please teach me to salute?”

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    So they taught her to salute. She practiced patiently, until the nurses pronounced her salute “Snappy!” She sat down happily on Cherry’s lap, beamed, and dangled her legs. She was still too shy to answer all the questions of the nurses. Suddenly she piped up:
    “You’re all my aunts! I just figured it out!” The girls laughed. “Of course, that’s right!” “Muriel’s American aunts!” “Everyone knows a mascot has to have an aunt!”
    Muriel fished in her bag and proudly passed around her precious peanuts and chewing gum. Oddly enough, none of the aunts seemed to wish any peanuts or gum at just that moment. Cherry, under Muriel’s pleading, did take one peanut—which they shared.
    “Mm, delicious! Now, please, may we go for a walk?” The small-size flight nurse breathed to Cherry, “Maybe to show Captain Wade my uniform!” They found Wade poking around their grounded C-47. Wade registered amazement at the tiny figure in flight nurse’s slacks, walking so erect and proudly at Cherry’s side.
    “Who could this be? A new nurse for our crew? Lieutenant Grainger, my compliments!” Wade came smartly to attention, clicked his heels, and flung out his hand in salute.
    Muriel immediately answered with a snappy salute.
    Then she dimpled. “It’s only I, Captain Wade. Not a real nurse.”

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    “Well, you certainly had me fooled!” Wade strolled over and hoisted the miniature nurse to his shoulder.
    “I could do that with you, too, Lieutenant Ames. Want to see the plane, cherub?”
    Muriel was rapturous as Wade lifted her into the cockpit and let her finger the controls “that make the plane fly.” She wandered wide-eyed through the