Page 62: Excerpt from A Nickel and a Prayer
newed my purpose to do something to help the people of my race.
Much of my work was in the obstetrical field. I remember the case of one wretched Negro woman whose common-law husband had deserted her and her five children ranging in age from one to six years. Another baby was expected within an hour. The doctor called me at twilight on Sunday and told me where to go and what to do. I felt sure that he would follow shortly.
When I entered the one-room apartment, I was amazed to see the mother sitting on a filthy ash-strewn floor, and huddled about her the five children, crying from terror and pangs of hunger. There was one stick of wood, but not a lump of coal in the house. How could I effect the necessary sterilization? While one of the neighbors rushed for the doctor, only to find him out, another hurried to the head nurse of the hospital, who sent me a lantern filled with kerosene and a bundle of newspapers. Cramming the latter into the open fireplace and striking a match, I contrived to raise a fire and heat some water. Then covering the filthy mattress with newspapers, I ordered my patient to get into bed.
“Ah no get into bed. I nebber libbers on de bed. I always libbers on de floor.”
“Well, Auntie, you aren’t going to ‘libber’ on ‘de’ floor this time,” I replied.
But as it happened I was mistaken; for before I
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Hunter, Jane Edna. A Nickel and a Prayer. 2nd edition. Nashville: Elli Kani Publishing Co., 1940.
newed my purpose to do something to help the people of my race.
Much of my work was in the obstetrical field. I remember the case of one wretched Negro woman whose common-law husband had deserted her and her five children ranging in age from one to six years. Another baby was expected within an hour. The doctor called me at twilight on Sunday and told me where to go and what to do. I felt sure that he would follow shortly.
When I entered the one-room apartment, I was amazed to see the mother sitting on a filthy ash-strewn floor, and huddled about her the five children, crying from terror and pangs of hunger. There was one stick of wood, but not a lump of coal in the house. How could I effect the necessary sterilization? While one of the neighbors rushed for the doctor, only to find him out, another hurried to the head nurse of the hospital, who sent me a lantern filled with kerosene and a bundle of newspapers. Cramming the latter into the open fireplace and striking a match, I contrived to raise a fire and heat some water. Then covering the filthy mattress with newspapers, I ordered my patient to get into bed.
“Ah no get into bed. I nebber libbers on de bed. I always libbers on de floor.”
“Well, Auntie, you aren’t going to ‘libber’ on ‘de’ floor this time,” I replied.
But as it happened I was mistaken; for before I
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Hunter, Jane Edna. A Nickel and a Prayer. 2nd edition. Nashville: Elli Kani Publishing Co., 1940.
© 2009 Jane Edna Hunter Project
