Hospital Sketches

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism, weight-bias, and gender bias.

Now using the moniker “Nurse Periwinkle,” Alcott explains that she will describe her travel from Massachusetts to Washington, where she is to take up her post.

The first train brings her to New London, where she will catch a boat. The train ride is comfortable, but in the process of trying to put her tickets where she can easily access them, she mislays them. Fortunately, “a compassionate neighbor” (11) finds them. Determined not to fulfill the cliche of American women being overly proper, she sets aside her bashfulness to chat amiably with her seat mate on topics as broad as the war, the weather, skating, and “the immortality of the soul” (11).

By 10 PM, she is sleepy, noting how her fellow travelers have contorted themselves in pursuit of sleep. When the lamps temporarily go out, the smell of brandy permeates the car. She is sure the culprit is “a stout gentleman” (12) who feigns sleep after the lamps are relit. At 11 PM, they arrive, and her seat mate escorts her to the boat and her cabin. There, she takes her cues from a lady who understands the protocol, securing a berth and pondering how to avoid a watery death if the boat should go down.