From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I had my arithmetic lesson and I am learning and it isn’t as hard as I thought it was so now I can write a little more about Florence Nightingale….
All the children in the neighborhood used to bring their sick animals to Florence. She put a splint on the leg of a little fox terrier, and a salve on the wound of a tiny kitten who had been bitten.
Kitten and Bitten rhyme and together, they make poetry, but if I say that the kitten was bitten by a dog, then the poem is spoilt, so I won’t say it, but she was.
Well, besides the kitten and the terrier Florence tried to nurse a goldfish that had jumped out of his bowl of water but though she rubbed him ever so hard and put him in a bowl of fresh water, he died anyhow and Florence cried tears all over him.