"Did I ever tell you about the time I was a nurse for a country doctor and got all mixed up in a campaign for mayor?"
--From Cherry Ames, Island Nurse, p. 46
Though there's no mention of her ever voting in any election, Cherry finds herself up to her ears in a nasty political campaign when she works as an office nurse in the town of Sleepyside-on-Hudson, in New York (Country Doctor's Nurse).
Campaign Chicanery
Young firebrand Harry Jenner is running for mayor against a firmly entrenched incumbent, Cyrus Hillman, who's been Sleepyside's mayor for twenty years. Most of the town pooh-poohs Harry's charges that Hillman is corrupt.
The complacent old-timers think Harry is just an upstart who wants to waste public money on unnecessary improvements to the town-owned tenements, and Hillman claims the town is already allocating large sums to keep the tenements in tip-top shape. But Harry suspects those allocations are finding their way into Hillman's pocket.
Though she's an outsider who can't vote in the election, Cherry aligns herself with Harry and helps him uncover Hillman's chicanery, which reaches back to a terrible car accident twenty-five years earlier. Facing public disgrace, the mayor hastily decamps, and on Election Day, Cherry and Harry urge voters to the polls. Thanks to these efforts, Harry is elected unanimously by a record number of voters.
Cherry, however, doesn't stick around for a job in the new Jenner administration, but soon departs for another job, this one at a boarding school--where most of her prospective patients are too young to vote.
Vying for Votes: Election Day
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