Fever 1793 (11 page)

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

September 24th, 1793

He who sitteth upon the Pale Horse, He whose name is Death, will be sent through the streets of Philadelphia.

-Quaker prophecy Philadelphia, 1793

Mrs. Flagg blew her nose into her kerchief with a loud honk.

"So much grief packed into one wagon," she said tearfully.

"Fear not, brave Mrs. Flagg," said Grandfather. He saluted her. "Our deepest thanks for your care and shelter. Please accept my most sincere hopes that we may meet again under healthier circumstances."

Mrs. Flagg curtsied deeply. "May the Lord keep and preserve all of you." She waved good-bye, and the wagon rolled forward. Soon Bush Hill faded into the horizon.

Grandfather and I were riding along with five fever

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orphans who were being sent to the orphan house. Grandfather rode at the front with the driver, a relatively clean man with neatly combed hair and a smooth face. He quietly whistled a tune, one of Grandfather's favorites. They would be good company for the journey.

I sat on the hardest plank in the back next to a woman named Mrs. Bowles. Two boys huddled together for comfort. They looked like brothers. The other children stared vacantly ahead. One girl looked to be my age. Her neck was dirty and her dress was torn. I wanted to speak to her but couldn't think of what to say. When she saw me looking at her, she turned away.

Mrs. Bowles was a straight-backed woman dressed in Quaker gray. She was older than Mother, with kind eyes and laughter lines that curled around the sides of her mouth. As we drove away from the hospital, she picked up the smallest crying child and sat him in her lap. The child's sobs kept time with the rhythm of horse hooves on the road. He wiped his nose on the front of her dress and snuggled closer in her arms.

"Mrs. Flagg explained that you have been through a great deal," Mrs. Bowles said gently.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"These are trying times. They seem to bring out the best and worst in the people around us." We sat in silence, watching as the slate roofs of the houses on the outskirts of the city came into view. Mosquitoes, gnats, and flies followed the wagon, drawn by the smell of the

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sweating children and horses. "How old are you, Matilda?"

"Fourteen, fifteen in December."

"And are you feeling recovered from your illness? Fully recovered?!"

I nodded. "My only complaint is that my stomach grumbles all the time."

She smiled and shifted the child in her arms. "That is normal enough for someone your age. If I may inquire?" she began delicately.

"Yes?"

"Have you considered what you might do to help? You have recovered, so you cannot get the fever again. You are young and strong. We have a real need for you."

"How can I help anyone? I'm just a girl." As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to pinch myself. The first time anyone treats me like a woman and I respond like an infant.

"You are much more than a girl, let me assure you of that. You are older than Susannah there." She inclined her head toward the girl with the dirty neck. "She has lost her family, but we are not taking her in as an orphan. She will help us with the younger children."

The child in Mrs. Bowles's lap stirred and whimpered.

"Shh. Hush," she whispered to the little one. "I know that you have not received any word from your mother yet. It may be better for you to stay with us. We would

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keep you fed and warm, and you could provide us with a much-needed extra pair of hands."

The wagon had reached the part of the city where new houses and businesses were under construction. Where there should have been an army of carpenters, masons, glaziers, plasterers, and painters, I saw only empty shells of buildings, already falling into disrepair after a few weeks of neglect.

"Grandfather would not allow it," I said with confidence. "If Mother is still out in the country, then we two shall care for each other. He doesn't know the first thing about shopping at the market or cooking, and I need him to chop wood and, and ... he will make sure I am well."

"It is good you have each other," said Mrs. Bowles in the same placid voice. "But you should not leave your house once you arrive. The streets of Philadelphia are more dangerous than your darkest nightmare. Fever victims lay in the gutters, thieves and wild men lurk on every corner. The markets have little food. You can't wander. If you are determined to return home with your grandfather, then you must stay there until the fever abates."

Grandfather turned to address us. "We may end up at the Ludingtons' farm after all," he said. "Josiah here tells me there's not much food to be found anywhere, Mattie. I'll write to them again as soon as we arrive home."

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"Won't do you no good," the driver interrupted. "The post office just closed down. It could take until Christmas before they can deliver letters."

Mrs. Bowles patted my arm. "Don't fret, Matilda. If you like, you may choose to take employment at the orphanage. I'm sure the trustees would approve a small wage if you helped with the cleaning or minding the children. They have for Susannah. She'll help with the laundry."

Susannah didn't look strong enough to wash a teaspoon, much less a tub full of clothing. "What will happen to her when the fever is over?" I whispered.

Mrs. Bowles lowered her voice. "She is at a difficult age. She's too old to be treated as a child, but not old enough to be released on her own. Her parents owned a small house. The trustees will sell that and use the money for her dowry. We will hire her out to work as a servant or scullery maid. She's attractive enough. I'm sure she'll find a husband."

A fly bit the ear of the child on Mrs. Bowles's lap, and his howl cut off the conversation.

Scullery maid, that was one thing I would never be. I imagined Mother's face when she arrived home and found what a splendid job I had done running the coffeehouse. I could just picture it-I would be seeing the last customers out the door when Mother would come up the steps. She would exclaim how clean and well-run the coffeehouse was. Grandfather would point out the

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fancy dry goods store I was building next door. I would blush, looking quite attractive in my new dressFrench, of course. Perhaps I could hire Susannah to do the washing up. That would be a way of helping.

I broke off my daydream to take in our surroundings. Grandfather and the driver had stopped swapping stories. He turned to look back at me anxiously. We were in the center of a dying city.

It was night in the middle of the day. Heat from the brick houses filled the street like a bake oven. Clouds shielded the sun, colors were overshot with gray. No one was about; businesses were closed and houses shuttered. I could hear a woman weeping. Some houses were barred against intruders. Yellow rags fluttered from railings and door knockers-pus yellow, fear yellow-to mark the homes of the sick and the dying. I caught sight of a few men walking, but they fled down alleys at the sound of the wagon.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing to something on the marble steps of a three-story house.

"Don't look, Matilda," said Grandfather. "Turn your head and say a prayer."

I looked. It appeared to be a bundle of bed linens that had been cast out of an upper window, but then I saw a leg and an arm.

"It's a man. Stop the wagon, we must help him!"

"He is past helping, Miss," the driver said as he urged on the horses. "I checked him on the way out to

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fetch you this morning. He were too far gone to go to the hospital. His family tossed him out so as they wouldn't catch the fever. The death cart will get him soon for burying."

I couldn't help but stare as the wagon rolled by the stoop. He looked about seventeen and wore well-tailored clothes stained with the effects of the fever. Only his polished boots remained clean. His yellow eyes stared lifelessly at the clouds, and flies collected on his open mouth.

"Won't there be a burial, a church service?" I asked as the driver turned east onto Walnut Street.

"Most preachers are sick or too exhausted to rise from their beds. A few stay in the square during the day, that takes care of the praying."

How could the city have changed so much? Yellow fever was wrestling the life out of Philadelphia, infecting the cobblestones, the trees, the nature of the people. Was I living through another nightmare?

"What date is this?" I asked Mrs. Bowles.

"Today is September the twenty-fourth," she answered.

"The twenty-fourth? That's not possible." I counted on my fingers. We fled on the eighth. "When we left, there were reports of a thousand dead. Do you know what the total is now?"

"It's double that at least," she said. "It slowed down those few cool days, but as soon as the temperature rose again, so did the number of corpses."

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The driver pulled on his reins to stop the horses. The road was blocked by a line of slow-moving carts, each pushed by a man with a rag tied over his face, each holding a corpse.

"The Potter's Field is ahead," Mrs. Bowles said as she pointed to the front of the line. "That's where they're burying most of the dead. The preachers say a prayer, and someone throws a layer of dirt on top."

Along one side of the square stretched a long row of mounded earth. The grave diggers had dug trenches as deeply as they could, then planted layer after layer of fever victims. Some of the dead were decently sewn into their winding sheets, but most were buried in the clothes they died in.

"A field plowed by the devil," I murmured. "They're not even using coffins."

"I haven't seen a coffin for four, five days now," the driver answered. He flicked the reins and urged the horses on. At Fifth Street, the wagon stopped.

"Here's the orphan house," said Mrs. Bowles. "We've taken over the home of William Ralston, though we'll soon need more room."

It was an ordinary-looking house, more expensive than some, but typical of Philadelphia: brick front, windows trimmed in white paint, metal ratlings, and a thick oaken door. The driver helped down Mrs. Bowles and Susannah, then each of the children. Mrs. Bowles put Susannah in charge of shepherding three of the children

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inside, and stayed to wave good-bye. The driver climbed back into his seat, then flicked the reins on the horses' backs.

"Remember what I said, Matilda," she called. "Take care. Whatever you do, take care."

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CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

September 24th, 1793

I cannot anticipate nor limit the period, when the devastation and horror too long experienced in this miserable place will have an end.

-Letter of John Walsh, clerk Philadelphia, 1793

By the time we reached the coffeehouse it was midday. An ugly yellow scrap from a ripped bodice was still tied to the handle of the front door, which was open.

I jumped out of the wagon before it had stopped moving. I leapt up the steps and burst through the doorway.

"Grandfather, hurry!"

The front room was a jumble. Tables and chairs lay helter-skelter. The clock was missing from the mantle; the pewter candleholders were nowhere to be found. King George's bird cage lay on the floor in pieces, as if smashed by a heavy boot. Grandfather hadn't seen the

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foul-mouthed parrot in days. Had he come home and flown off again?

The destruction in the kitchen was greater. Broken pottery covered the floor. The doors to the pantry stood open, and Eliza's crocks of preserves, the sugar cone, and her spice cabinet were missing. The coffee and tea canisters lay on their sides, empty. The dried meat, beans, and onions that usually hung from the ceiling had vanished. Even the kitchen table was overturned.

Something crunched behind me. I whirled around, but it was only Grandfather picking his way across the broken plates. "What happened here?" he asked quietly. His eyes moved over the mess, but it did not look like he could make sense of it. "I was just here a few days ago. I locked the door, Mattie. I'm sure." His voice was on the edge of trembling.

I picked up pieces of broken glass. "Don't fret," I said. "Someone broke in the window. You locked the door, Grandfather. It's not your fault."

"Did they take anything from upstairs?"

My heart thudded against my stays. Before Grandfather could say another word, I had lifted my skirts and raced up the staircase.

The second floor looked as I had left it, except that Mother was missing. The powerful stench of sickness lingered. I opened the windows and shutters to bring in fresh air, then crossed the hall.

My bed was still in Grandfather's chamber. I glanced

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