New Gods of North America.

Chapter 440 Nurse
Led by an elderly lady named "Dorothy", Wayne and his group quickly entered the relatively "civilian" delivery room.

Actually, it’s not easy to call this “Auntie”.

Let's call her a "nun". Although she looks like a devout believer, she is not actually a member of the church.

Let’s call her a “nurse”, but these days people who are “engaged in professional medical care” are generally considered “male” in the public’s perception.

Although the matter of "delivering a baby" is quite special, most men would be easily excluded from it, even in the Old World or America.
At first, it was basically assisted by relevant female relatives, and then gradually expanded to older maids in the family, and then to nuns in the church who were a little further away.
By the time the American Commonwealth was first established, there were already relevant associations that began to train working women on how to take care of "mothers" during childbirth and the postpartum period.

However, the power of "inertia" is still strong. Even in hospitals decades after the founding of the United States, female nurses only have a certain say in the so-called "obstetrics and gynecology department" and are still considered "unprofessional" in other medical fields.
Specifically for Wayne, the elderly lady and her followers were polite to the exorcists, but seemed extremely displeased when they looked at Wayne and the other search personnel.
It's like watching "an inspection team trying every possible means to find fault" or "an uninvited guest trying to break into their territory".

Of course, there are objective reasons for this. The church's search cannot be disclosed at will. The reason Wayne and his team came to check was that "someone reported that there might be problems here."
So it is normal to be displeased by others if you make a mistake.

Fortunately, Wayne was not here to make friends with her. As a "court lackey", he had a very positive mentality. As long as the other party cooperated with him to lead the way and provide information, it would be fine. He didn't care what she thought.

The houses in the delivery room are mostly single-storey or two-storey, with a low plot ratio, so the overall area is not too small.
After the group was led to their locations by the older ladies, they separated and carefully checked the place one after another. The focus was of course on the so-called "public areas", such as the water source in the courtyard, the small courtyard, and the prayer room.

Wayne believed in physics and thought the most simple way to do something was to poison it. He started to check the water well and water tank, and left the prayer room to the exorcist priests.
Sanders climbed to a high place and lifted the heavy iron plate, drew half a bucket of water from the water tank, and then lowered it with a rope for Wayne to check. After the older lady led the way, she did not continue to follow the exorcist priest, but came back here, put her hands on her hips, and continued to stare at Wayne, the "leader".

Wayne opened his simple vision and looked into the bucket several times, then casually scooped up some water with his hand and took a sip.
Well……

It's not sweet, salty or spicy, just ordinary water.

The older lady looked at Wayne's serious expression and seemed to be getting more and more annoyed:
"Sir, our nursing staff here are all professional and will check the food and water situation every day. How is it, is there any problem?"

Wayne motioned to Sanders to try to fish it out of the water tank again, while comforting the prickly aunt beside him, "There is really no problem, Ms. Dorothy. You did a great job."

After checking the water tank, check the faucet at the final outlet and the well at the entrance.
Thanks to the lack of funding in public hospitals, the cast iron pipes used here, even though they are rusty, are not lead pipes, so Wayne was unable to taste the so-called "slight sweetness" in the water.

In order to prevent Dorothy from staring at him like a thief, Wayne kept asking questions to divert her attention.
For example, when he saw a black lady passing by with her head down and carrying luggage, and the baby in her arms was obviously much whiter, Wayne became very curious about how the baby should be registered at birth.

Ms. Dorothy's attitude became even worse. "How else can we register? According to the laws you people advocate, the children of slaves can only remain slaves." Wayne shrank his neck. This was really presumptuous of him...

Professor David Lee, who teaches the history of America at the college, likes to add his own opinions, but some of his words do make sense.
The American Federation claims to be the successor of the Roman Empire of the Old World, so some of its systems were naturally copied.
According to the laws of the Roman Empire at that time, if the mother of a free man and a slave was a slave, the children would still be slaves, but if the mother was a free man, the children would be free men.

This is also one of the reasons why some white slave owners in America could reproduce with their female slaves and continue to enslave their mixed-race offspring without any guilt.

"That's what people in the Roman Empire did back then."

Wayne had actually heard this passage in class, but because there was no such custom in Black Rock Town—the townspeople in the western town were more conservative and believed that all mixed-bloods should be killed—he only took it as a "point of knowledge" and didn't really take it to heart.
Seeing that Dorothy was indignant, he knew that he had said something wrong, so he just accepted the scolding and tried to change the subject again:

"I see that the baby seems to have been born only a few days ago. Can he be discharged from the hospital now?"

Dorothy's expression had turned cold and hostile. "Not everyone can enjoy a good life. Women need to get out of bed and work two to three days after giving birth. This is the norm for the poor and even many families."

Okay, America doesn’t care about confinement…

Wayne bent down to check the water drawn from the well. After confirming that there was no problem, he pretended to cooperate with Sanders to restore it to its original state. He no longer wanted to continue chatting nonsense.

But Wayne's impression of this lady improved a little. At first, Wayne thought she was just a person who was making trouble for her own sake. But she was indignant about some topics. Even if she was not a good person, she probably would not be "incapable of distinguishing right from wrong".
The latter are sometimes even more annoying than the “real villains”.

Several groups of people moved very quickly. As soon as they finished the inspection, several other groups came over one after another and said that they found nothing abnormal.

Wayne had already begun to think about what other suspicious places he had missed, when suddenly some clues came together in his mind.

So he quietly called over an exorcist priest from the cathedral and said, "Use the name of the cathedral to secretly confirm with Ms. Dorothy whether the local clergy with higher positions have really never come here privately. Ask her to swear in the name of the Holy Spirit before answering."

(End of this chapter)