It was rather awkward.

The two women shared a name, and a number of semi-close relations, but apart from a pair of rather formal letters, they had never been in communication, let alone met, before.

How does one greet a first cousin once removed, who is a complete stranger to you? Mrs Armentrout was a rather jolly woman, and would no doubt have thrown her arms around Nurse Armentrout. Nurse Armentrout, however, looked so stiff, formal and brittle that she might snap in half if such a manoeuvre were assayed. A simple nod would have done her. The two of them settled on a shake of hands.

And then there was what to call each other? Adelheid felt it unseemly to call the older woman merely 'cousin'.

"Mrs Armentrout, I am very pleased to meet you at last. Great Aunt, er, your Aunt, sends her felicitations." the nurse said, sounding again, rather stiff and formal. 

"Thank you for your recommendation to Mrs Wigfall. I arrived on the stage yesterday evening and the accommodations are quite satisfactory. The young man indeed requires the attentions of a trained nurse. The sister and mother have been doing what they can, but the girl is slovenly and the Mother fusses so, and I can see is prone to mollycoddle the boy. I was hoping to see the attending doctor, is it Dr. Danforth or.. Mrs Wigfall mentioned a Dr Boone?"

They were still standing on the doorstep of Doctor Danforth's surgery in one of the better built houses off the main street of Kalispell.

Bongo 

Flip [if you would like Boone involved] 

"Oh, dear Addy!"  Magdelena 'Polly' Armentrout embraced her relative in a soft, warm hug, then ushered her into the house.  "It's so good to have you here!  I'm glad everything is working out for you!"

Despite her brittle appearance, Adelheid had no objection to the hug. In fact, and human contact that wasn't medicine related was a nice change. She just hadn't wanted to overstep any bounds.

Addy! Nobody but a family member would call her that. She smiled at her cousin; a rare occurrence, as she'd realised long ago that smiling actually made her even uglier than usual. She had tried smiling different smiles in the mirror, broad, demure, wistful.... none of them had a particularly pleasant effect on her features. She felt, with family, it didn't matter. She let herself smile for once.

The young woman's appearance didn't faze the woman, in fact, she thought the girl bore a strong resemblance to her Grandpa Towberman, who had immigrated from Nassau, Holy Roman Empire in the mid-1750's, and was known to be a good, Godly man!

"Please, do come in, I can get you some tea or coffee, and I just pulled a batch of pfeffernüsse cookies from the oven!  Dr. Danforth is with a patient, but should just be a few moments!"

"Oh, a cup of coffee and some cookies would be a dream!" Adelheid sighed. She never had to worry about her weight, the young woman was a stick! She would like to have some shape, but she was ever so skinny that people took her for tubercular, or assumed that she had picked up some terrible wasting disease during her nursing duties. 

The woman laughed heartily. "It's so good to have you in town!  I want to hear all the gossip!"  Not giving the girl much choice, she steered her toward the kitchen.

Cousin Polly was so Jolly and, it had to be admitted, still a very attractive woman for her years. Adelheid had seen old pictures of her in her prime and she had been quite the beauty. 

She sat herself down at the kitchen table. 

"Oh, there is little to tell from home. Johannes had another child, that is five now I think, eight including those who have gone over; We finally got Trudl's headstone righted..." she trailed off, even now, and despite the familiarity with the work of the Reaper she had learned by working as a nurse, talking about her late sister upset her. 

"I am more interested in this place. What is your Doctor Danforth like? Mrs Wigfall says that he is soon to make a most unsuitable marriage. What do you know of the Wigfalls? They seem nice enough, but I think that they are still in shock after what has befallen the boy Hector. They are 'pulling together' as they say." she asked.

Bongo

"Oh, goodness, it sounds like Johannes is trying to catch up to me!"  Mrs. A laughed as she poured them both mugs of coffee that she set at the table there in the kitchen.  

Adelheid laughed, too. Oh, it was good to laugh. One had to stay so very serious and po-faced when one was nursing. And she was so aware how unfortunately hideous she looked when she laughed, but that didn't matter in front of cousin Polly. 

"Well, when Mr Wigfall is feeling a little better and can be left, you must allow me to visit, dear cousin, and meet my..." she had to think "first cousins twice removed!"

Mrs Armentrout then answered her relation's question about her employer.

"Dr. Danforth is..."  Setting a plate of warm cookies on the table, Polly plopped into a chair, shrugging.  "Well, he's a good man, a bit...stand-offish, although Miss Steelegrave seems to be bringing him out some." 

Adelheid nodded, this was useful intelligence vis-a-vis their imminent meeting. 

She shoveled several lumps of sugar into her coffee, then stirred it.  "Folks seem to like him, and he's helped many of them."  She laughed.  "Even is happy to accept whatever they offer him as pay...eggs, preserves, flour, coffee...young Brad Ericson even brought him his pet squirrel 'Gary'!"

"Oh, how quaint! Like Garyowen, the song, yes?" smiled Adelheid - ooh, the two women, who had lost some of their Germanic inflections in everyday conversation with Americans of less recently arrived stock, were inadvertently bringing it out in each other again. 

Polly laughed again. "He's still running around the yard somewhere, as far as I know!  The squirrel, not the doctor!"

They both chuckled at the idea of Dr Danforth scampering about up and down trees, looking for his nuts. Adelheid would have to try not to think of that when she actually met the man.

"As for those Wigfalls, don't let them get to you, they have a different way to them."

The nurse shrugged.

"I like them fine, and Mrs Wigfall pays me in good hard cash, not in squirrels. And she is a mine of information. It was she who told me about Dr Danforth marrying this Miss Steelgrave" she confided.

"Dr. Danforth is courting Miss Steelegrave, there's no talk of marriage that I'm aware of, and the lady is of good character, even if her father is Elias Steelegrave."  All right, there was one person she couldn't find any good in, no matter how hard she tried!  "The two of them have been working on the hospital together for a year now, but the young lady is really the driving force."

Adelheid leaned forward a little and dropped her voice.

"Well... Mrs Wigfall says that someone called Mrs Miggins told her that they are getting married and that Miss Steelgrave is just doing all of this just to spite her Father, doing charitable works, building hospitals and orphanages and goodness knows what, and marrying a poor country doctor and so forth, but that at heart she is just as bad as he is... this Elias, as you say, this Elias Steelgrave... and in Mrs Miggins' opinion 'the apple never falls far from the tree' and one day this Elias and his daughter will be reconciled and between them they will control even more of the town than ever, and poor Dr Danforth will just be their puppet on a string..."

Adelheid took a deep breath; she had forgotten to breath while spilling that massive drop of scurrilous tea.

"Oh, and she also says that your Miss Steelgrave has hired gunmen in her service, just like her father, like the ones that shot poor mister Wigfall and a gentleman called Mister Browne."

You had to hand it to the Helen Miggins and Mary Wigfalls of the world, they sure knew how to spin the facts to suit their own view of the world - Phin McVey should have hired them long ago to write a gossip column for his paper.

Bongo

Mrs Armentrout was giving her cousin her ‘corrected’ version of the Steelgrave saga when the man who was planning to marry into that clan appeared, in his shirtsleeves. Adelheid stood respectfully.  

Her cousin suddenly set her coffee down and pushed to her feet as Jonah came into the room, looking a little bedraggled, his sleeves rolled up and hair mussed.  "I'll get you some coffee, Jonah, and I made cookies!" 

Jonah yet! Polly was certainly on familiar terms with her employer. Adelheid had been trained to be respectful and obedient to Doctors, no matter what you thought of them as individuals.

They discussed the previous patient, while Nurse Armentrout stood quietly with her hands clasped in front of her.

"And at least he pays cash."  Jonah sighed and turned to face the table as he dried his hands.  "And who is this...young lady?"  He offered Adelheid a proper smile, hoping she wasn't another patient.

The smile was not returned.

"This is my cousin, Adelheid Armentrout...she's a nurse, and is caring for Hector."

 “I am here to receive your instructions, Doctor. I understand that you are the attending physician, or a Doctor Boone?” she asked, Mrs Wigfall’s  explanations had been a little muddled.

"Ah, well, pleased to meet you, Miss Armentrout."  He assumed 'Miss', anyway!

She gave a curt nod.

Coming in through the back door from the necessary, Josiah Boone was buttoning the last button on his vest and pulling it down, "Well Hello, and who have we here? Doctor Josia Boone."

“I am pleased to meet you, Doctor Boone. I am nurse Armentrout, I have been taken on by Mrs Wigfall to nurse Mister Hector Wigfall” she informed the more distinguished looking medical man.

"I work with Doctor Danforth here and will soon be on staff at the regional Hospital, once it is open." He extended his hand.

She took it respectfully.

“I was hoping for instructions around Mr Wigfall, Dr. Boone” she repeated. She was all business now.

@[Bongo] 

Flip 

Josiah Boone did not have time to respond to the nurse, Danforth got to it quickly and efficiently.

"Yes, exactly, Jonah." He agreed, "I am only assisting on this case, Nurse Armentrout, and I can't tell you how grateful we are to have you, hopefully, you plan to join us on staff when the hospital opens, as good nursing will certainly be needed."

He was serious about that and felt that Jonah and Leah would feel the same way. A good nurse could also train ladies interested in the healing arts as well.