FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
THE ANGEL OF THE CRIMEA

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
THE ANGEL OF THE CRIMEA

A STORY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

BY

LAURA E. RICHARDS

AUTHOR OF "CAPTAIN JANUARY,"
"THE GOLDEN WINDOWS," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1911

Copyright, 1909, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Published September, 1909

Printed in the United States of America

TO
THE SISTER ELEANOR

OF THE SISTERHOOD OF SAINT MARY

HERSELF THROUGH MANY LONG YEARS A DEVOTED WORKER FOR THE POOR, THE SICK, AND THE SORROWFUL, THIS BRIEF RECORD OF AN HEROIC LIFE IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

CONTENTS

• CHAPTER    PAGE
• 1. How Florence Got Her Name—Her Three Homes     1 
  2. Little Florence     9 
  3. The Squire's Daughter     19 
  4. Looking Out     32 
  5. Waiting for the Call     40 
  6. The Trumpet Call     45 
  7. The Response     58 
  8. Scutari     68 
  9. The Barrack hospital     75 
  10. The Lady-in-Chief     85 
  11. The Lady with the Lamp     98 
  12. Winter     114 
  13. Miss Nightingale Under Fire     129 
  14. The Close of the War     143 
  15. The Tasks of Peace     159 

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

CHAPTER I.
HOW FLORENCE GOT HER NAME—HER THREE HOMES.

One evening, some time after the great Crimean War of 1854-55, a company of military and naval officers met at dinner in London. They were talking over the war, as soldiers and sailors love to do, and somebody said: "Who, of all the workers in the Crimea, will be longest remembered?"

Each guest was asked to give his opinion on this point, and each one wrote a name on a slip of paper. There were many slips, but when they came to be examined there was only one name, for every single man had written "Florence Nightingale."

Every English boy and girl knows the beautiful story of Miss Nightingale's life. Indeed, hers is perhaps the best-loved name in England since good Queen Victoria died. It will be a great pleasure to me to tell this story to our own boys and girls in this country; and it shall begin, as all proper stories do, at the beginning.

Her father was named William Nightingale. He was an English gentleman, and in the year 1820 was living in Italy with his wife. Their first child was born in Naples, and they named her Parthenope, that being the ancient name of Naples; two years later, when they were living in Florence, another little girl came to them, and they decided to name her also after the city of her birth.

When Florence was still a very little child her parents came back to England to live, bringing the two children with them. First they went to a house called Lea Hall, in Derbyshire. It was an old, old house of gray stone, standing on a hill, in meadows full of buttercups and clover. All about were blossoming hedgerows full of wild roses, and great elder-bushes heavy with white blossoms; and on the hillside below it lies the quaint old village of Lea with its curious little stone houses.

Lea Hall is a farmhouse now, but it still has its old flag-paved hall and its noble staircase of oak with twisted balustrade, and broad solid steps where little Florence and her sister "Parthe" used to play and creep and tumble. There was another place near by where they loved even better to play; that was the ancient house of Dethick. I ought rather to say the ancient kitchen, for little else remained of the once stately mansion. The rest of the house was comparatively new, but the great kitchen was (and no doubt is)