The Midwife of Hope River (16 page)

“Can you make us some tea?” I ask the aunt as I consult Mrs. Kelly's pocket watch hanging around my neck. My plan is, I'll give them ten minutes and then I'll peek in.

The ladies begin to bustle around again. Not only tea but also biscuits and homemade blackberry jam appear on the table. In the bedroom there are voices, and I think I hear singing. Could there be singing? We all look up, and I raise my hand to indicate that everyone else should stay seated while I creep back down the hall. In the bedroom, in the lamplight, Levi holds Molly in his arms and sways back and forth . . . back and forth.

“Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you. Away, you rolling river,”
he sings into Molly's ear. Her face has such peace as she rests on his shoulder . . . then her eyes come wide open.

“Mmmmmm,” she moans, somewhere between pleasure and pain.

“Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you. Away, I'm bound away, 'cross the wide Missouri,”
Levi continues. Molly stops her moan and returns to her trance again, but two minutes later she moans again and then again . . . it's as though they are singing a duet, him the words and melody, her the bass.

“Help, something's coming!” It's Molly.

Levi leaps back as if he's just stepped into a nest full of rattlers. “Midwife!” he yells.

“I'm right here.”

Grandma bustles in and begins to prepare the birth bed. “Set her down. Set her down!” she orders as if expecting the baby to fall out.

“Not yet,” I counter. “Levi! Back to work. Keep singing. Molly, don't push yet. You can lean on the baby, but don't push, it can't be time.” I squat down on the floor, pulling my rubber gloves on. The young woman gaps a little on the outside, but there's nothing to be seen.

Levi stares straight up at the ceiling, afraid to look but still crooning,
“Away, I'm bound away, 'cross the wide Missouri.”

Within minutes the moans turn to growls and a round bald infant's head appears at the opening. “Okay, she can lie down now,” I command. “The head's right here.” Everyone is happier when we get Molly back in bed, but I barely have time to get my birth stuff out.

“Oh, no!” the young woman cries. “It's coming! It's coming!” And it is.

“Okay, Molly. This is it. Push like your life depends on it. Push like your baby's life depends on it. I'll hold your bottom so you won't tear.” Everyone joins in with encouragement, including Levi, who has slipped from the room and collapsed in the hall.

“Push, Molly. Push hard! You can do it!” he yells, and I catch sight of his long legs and his farmer's boots sticking out past the door.

“PUSH!”
he roars, louder than any of us—and Molly does.

In two more woody hard contractions, a baby boy is born, screaming and pink, and I lay him in his mother's arms.

“Praise the Lord!” hollers Grandma, picking up Molly's glasses and gently adjusting them behind the ears.

“My baby. My baby. Oh, Levi, our baby!” Molly cries as she kisses the infant.

The other women fall on their knees and begin to pray. I'm kneeling too, checking the womb for the final contractions, watching for the afterbirth.

Levi creeps into the room, keeping his eyes averted, and kneels with us. “Great God,” he prays aloud. “Thank you for your bounty and for this gift which you have bestowed upon us.” There is more, but I don't get it.

Light lifts me as I deliver the afterbirth. Light lifts us all.

 

March 7, 1930. Quarter moon rising.

Wyse Klopfenstein, male child of Molly and Levi Klopfenstein of Bucks Run, born at 7 pounds, 2 ounces. Head presented in the military position. The young patient had pained for two days to the point of exhaustion. She hadn't been out of bed for almost twenty-four hours, and I see now that what we do or don't do for the mother influences the course of labor. Immobilizing the woman in bed, not letting her eat or get up to pee, slowed down everything, and then the uterus got tired.

Whether it was getting her up to the commode, feeding her broth with ginseng and raspberry tea, or calling her husband into the birthing room, we'll never know, but within an hour, Molly pushed four times and the baby came out. No tears. No hemorrhage. I found myself on my knees praying “thank you” with the others of the sect, who I later learned are a variation of Old Order Amish.

22

Gift Horse

Today is St. Patrick's Day, which was a big time for us when we lived in Chicago. The celebration was important for Mrs. Kelly too, and I became used to her parties with Irish soda bread and Irish stew and even a little Irish whiskey. I kidded Bitsy at breakfast for not wearing green, but she didn't get it. It's been good to have her around again. With the exception of the three days with Thomas, she hasn't been off the farm at all, unless it's to church on Sunday. I hate to say that I'm jealous of her relationship with Thomas and the Hazel Patch community, but it's a little true. It's unseemly and makes me feel small.

Nevertheless, it's spring, and that's something to be thrilled about. The apple tree is blooming, a warm wind comes up through the valley, and there will be a full moon tonight. Though it's really too early to plant, the kitchen garden has been turned over and we are raring to go. As soon as the breakfast dishes are done, we head out to the side yard, which is fenced with barbed wire to keep the deer out. Bitsy carries the yellow
Old Farmer's Almanac
that her mother, Big Mary, lent us, and I carry the hoes and rakes. Mary also shared with us the seeds saved from her garden last year.

This will be my third garden, and though I don't care much for the relentless physical work or getting muddy and sweaty, I still marvel at the miracle of placing seeds in the ground and watching them sprout. My companion has been helping Mary grow vegetables since she was little, so it's not quite as thrilling for her.

We bend low, sowing our early crops: peas, collards, carrots, and beets. Bitsy shows me a few tricks about seeding evenly. After the danger of frost is over, we'll put in corn and beans, tomatoes, squash, and potatoes. When I stand to straighten my aching back, I'm startled to notice a Model T creeping up Wild Rose Road. The auto appears to have a horse tied to the back. It's Daniel Hester. As we walk out to greet him, I tuck my loose hair back and wipe my face on the back of my sleeve.

“Little early to start a garden, isn't it?” he observes after he parks and gets out.

Bitsy jumps in with her chin tilted up. “Not according to the almanac. It's a full moon tonight and going to be an early spring. We won't get another frost.
The Old Farmer's Almanac
uses science to make their predictions.” I'm surprised that she's treating the vet as an equal. So often with whites she eats the humble pie, never disagreeing. “Yes, sir, and yes, ma'am,” and all that.

Hester looks skeptical but cuts short the discussion when his horse starts to flop down in the road. He runs to the back of his Ford and grabs the rope. “No, you don't, Star. On your feet! She tries to do that,” he explains, “whenever I stop.”

I meander over and touch the big animal's nose, but she whinnies and turns away. She's a beautiful horse, brown with a blaze on her forehead. “Is something wrong with her?”

“She's Mrs. Dresher's horse; the farmer with the dog that had puppies. She has founder, a disease of the hooves. The other name is laminitis.” He waits to see if I know what that means, but I shrug. “Causes the hooves to become deformed, very painful and hard to cure. The old man wanted me to put her down this morning, but I couldn't do it. I asked if I could have her instead. See if I could bring her back to health.”

Hester bends down and picks up one of Star's front hooves. I've never seen the bottom of a horse's foot before, and I'm almost sick when I see the blood and what looks like bone sticking through. As a midwife, most things don't bother me, but this gives me shivers.

“Yuck.” I wrinkle my face. “How did this happen?” Bitsy is silent, leaning over my shoulder.

“Well, we aren't sure. Star had lameness last year, but I wasn't called in. Since money is so tight, most of the farmers, even the well-to-do ones, don't call me unless they think the situation's critical. After a week the limp went away. Then, a few days ago, she got into the cattle's grain.

“I guess that was it. An overrich diet can cause the horse's gut to release toxins that go into the bloodstream and eventually settle in the hoof, resulting in an abscess. The same thing can happen after a retained placenta, but this animal hasn't been bred for years . . . Cushing's disease can cause it too, but that's more chronic than acute.” I'm mildly interested, but Bitsy has gone back to the garden. “The point is, the condition is severely painful and usually a death sentence, but I thought of you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. If you and Bitsy have the time, I think we can turn this around and then you'd have a good horse. You need one, don't you?”

I watch as the mare staggers back and forth on her front hooves, rolling her eyes in pain. I know nothing about horses, and I doubt that Bitsy does either.

“What would we have to do?”

“Well, first off, I'd show you how to bandage her feet; then you'd have to change the dressings. You'd also have to take her down to the creek three times a day to let her stand in cold water. I'd have to keep trimming the bare hooves while the new hoof material grew in. You'd have to keep a very clean stall and give her feed that's low in carbohydrates. Hay would be okay and maybe a little grass, but not grain. Your pasture would be okay. It doesn't look too rich.”

I glance over at the ten acres of green, with yellow and white wildflowers that surround the barn. Looks pretty rich to me, but I'm no farmer.

“What's the worst that could happen?” Hester questions. “She could die. Or, if she gets well, it will take around two months and she's yours. She's a good mare . . . or was a good mare. Only fifteen. She could still even foal.”

I run my hands along her sides, like I know what I'm feeling for. She doesn't look bad. Her back doesn't sway. Really, I'm just feeling her life force. Mr. Hester admits that this foot disorder might be fatal. Do I want to care for an animal that I will get fond of . . . and then watch her die? I make a snap decision, throw caution to the wind.

“Okay, we'll do it. Bitsy,” I declare, “we have a horse. It's very sick, but Mr. Hester thinks we can cure her. What do you say?”

“Whatever you say, Miss Patience.”
Cut the subservience, Bitsy,
I flash with my eyes. Maybe I should have consulted with her first. It's as though I've broken a rule and she's putting me back in my place. Funny how that “Miss Patience,” in this setting where we live as equals, lets me know that something is wrong.

“Great. I'll come by to trim the bare hooves twice a week,” the vet promises, missing the whole interchange. “And we won't use horseshoes anymore,
ever.
” We lead Star into the barn and clean up a stall, and the vet shows us how to wrap the feet.

When he leaves and Bitsy is back in the house starting supper, I stand in the barn alone, taking in our new animal. She turns to me, her brown eyes wet with what I think of as tears. “It will be okay, sweetie,” I say, like she's one of my patients.

We have a horse!

 

March 20, 1930. No moon, overcast sky, fog so thick you could eat it with a spoon.

Eula May Mayle, female infant born to Carl and Ruby Mayle, Upper Raccoon Creek. 6 pounds, 4 ounces. Third baby. No problems. Bitsy and I barely made it to the house. Ruby laughed that she was waiting on us but couldn't wait much longer! Carl told her she had to hold on because he wasn't catching no damn baby! Present were just Bitsy and I and the couple. We were paid one live chicken and a hand-knit blanket that will be very useful next winter.

 

Twyla

The first rush of spring has come and gone, and now there's more rain. A month ago we were confined by snow. Now it's red clay and mud.

Yesterday was Easter, and when Thomas came with a cart, Bitsy pleaded with me to go to the chapel at Hazel Patch, but I begged off, saying I wasn't in the mood, and stayed at home to work in the garden . . . A few hours later, I was surprised to see Thomas and Bitsy returning from church early, the cart laboring back up Wild Rose Road.

 

“Mrs. Potts wasn't at church, but she sent word with a neighbor that she wants us to come into Liberty for a delivery,” Bitsy announces. I wrinkle my nose. It's not that I don't want to help the older midwife, but I feel as though I'm being dragged into another emergency. It's a beautiful spring day, and I have farm chores to do.

“What's up?” I ask, knowing I won't refuse.

“It's Twyla, Nancy Savage's daughter,” Thomas puts in. “Nancy is Judge Hudson's cook, and her daughter, Twyla, is the Hudsons' upstairs maid. The kid is having labor pains. She's only fourteen, has been crying since yesterday, and refuses to go to the hospital. Hudson's wife is so upset, she fainted, and the judge stormed out. Mrs. Potts has been sitting with her all night, and the judge told her he didn't want any damn nigger girl wailing in his house when he got back.”

You can tell by the way Thomas tightens his jaw that he's really angry. “Mrs. Potts wants Bitsy to come too. She says Bitsy may be able to calm the girl down.”

“Who's the father? Is there a father?”

“Nobody's saying, but we think he's Judge Hudson's son, Marvin, a student at Princeton. He was home this summer. It would be the right time.”

I blow through my mouth. I can't refuse Mrs. Potts, but a fourteen-year-old girl may not be big enough to birth a good-sized baby and I don't even know the family.

 

An hour later we're clip-clopping across the bridge into Liberty with the Hope River spilling over her banks below. Two bufflehead ducks, with their black-and-white feathers and overlarge teal-and-purple heads swirl in the backwater. Bitsy is still wearing her go-to-church clothes and I'm looking presentable enough, I think. My dress is a ten-year-old blue chemise, and hers a yellow flowered affair she inherited from Katherine MacIntosh. We have aprons for the birth in our satchel.

Poor Thomas, he's hardly said a word. Everyone must call on him for everything. Tonight he has to work the night-owl shift at the mine, and I wonder how we'll get home.

 

We enter quietly through the back door of the Hudsons' white colonial. A wraparound porch with swings and ferns in pots and wicker furniture graces the front. Before we get into the kitchen, I hear a scream, and for some reason, it crosses my mind that the way the girl got pregnant might not have been consensual. The judge's son would be eighteen or twenty, a fully grown man; she's only fourteen, little more than a child.

Mrs. Hudson, with gray-streaked brown hair done up in a bun, sits at the long maple table with a cold compress on her head. She doesn't get up. The cook, Nancy Savage, a thin coffee-colored woman in a white uniform, welcomes us in. Upstairs the wailing starts up again.

Thomas takes his hat off and bows with his head to the judge's wife. “Mrs. Hudson.” He nods to the colored woman of about his mom's age. “Miss Nancy, this is Patience Murphy, the midwife from over Hope Ridge, and her assistant, my sister, Bitsy.”

“Bless you!” The cook stands and directs her comment to both of us. “I hope you can get that girl to settle down. She's going to tear herself up or lose that baby if she don't behave.”

“Yes, thank you so much for coming,” Mrs. Hudson murmurs, glancing from under the comfort rag on her brow. “Nancy, take their things and show them up the back stairs. I just hope you can do something. The child has already run my husband off, and if this keeps up, I'll have to leave too.”

The wailing starts once more. By the sound of it, the pains are about every four minutes. Mrs. Kelly always told me to let laboring women find their own way. “It's their journey,” she said. “You can't lay the road for them.” I take a deep breath. Maybe she's right, but screaming has never seemed helpful to me, and despite my chosen name, I'm not as patient as she was.

 

Upstairs, Nancy nervously pushes the guest bedroom door open.

“Twyla,” she whispers, “the other midwives have come.” A pillow flies across the room and hits me in the face. It doesn't hurt, just offends me a little. “Now, Twyla, don't be that way! These nice ladies are going to help you get your baby.” The girl's mother retreats and slips down the stairs, understandably at her wit's end.

“I don't want no baby!” Twyla shouts after her. So that's the trouble. It's hard to suffer the pains of childbirth if you don't welcome the infant.

“Hi, Twyla,” I try. The girl turns her back and starts wailing again. She's a slip of a thing, probably not five feet tall, with wild curly hair and very light, almost golden, eyes, strange in a brown face. Mrs. Potts sits in the corner in a rocking chair, her hands empty in her lap. She's clearly had enough of this, but a midwife can't give up, can't leave her patient until the baby's out and the mother and infant are stable.

“Whooooooooooooooooooo!” Twyla shrieks. Bitsy surprises me by dropping the satchel, going right up to the patient, and putting her hand over the young woman's mouth. She pats Twyla's lower face so her wail sounds like a barn owl. “Whoooo. Whoooo. Whooooo. Whooooooo.” The girl slaps Bitsy's palm away. “Who are you?”