The Midwife of Hope River (5 page)

“Not that much. Two or three quarts a day. How much do you get from your cows?”

“Three gallons a milking.” My eyebrows shoot up. “If you had her bred,” he continues, “and freshened, you could get that much too, but you'd have to let her go dry so she'd ovulate. I have a bull; no charge, if you're interested. You'd want to do it right away. As soon as the mastitis is over.”

I let that sink in. “How long is a cow's gestation?”

“About nine months, same as a human's. Let me know.” Hester shrugs back into his coat, which he'd laid on the seat of the wooden rocker, and glances around the parlor once more. His eyes rest on the picture of me overlooking Lake Michigan, with the west wind blowing my hair.

“Better bring in some wood. It's going to be cold tonight.” He pulls on his old brown fedora and goes into the dark.

Outside, a crescent moon sits in the branches of the naked oak tree. I pull on my jacket and stand for a minute looking up at the clear star-filled sky. Under the porch there's only enough coal to fill a milk bucket, and the stack of split oak is almost gone.

7

Big Mary

Today the sun shines, a strong wind blows in from the west, and I have no excuse for not making my visit to the MacIntoshes'. I'm embarrassed to ask them for payment outright. Mrs. Kelly always told me that delivering babies was an act of charity, something a person did for love, but that was before the economy collapsed, and back in those days almost everyone gave us
something
—a few dollars, a side of ham or maybe a chicken. I'm hoping that William MacIntosh will get the hint when I return, because I badly need cash for fuel, wood and coal.

As I pedal down Wild Rose Road, then along Raccoon Lick and the three more miles into Liberty, I make note of the last of the wildflowers. Only a few goldenrods still droop in the ditch with the six-foot-high purple ironweed lording it over them. A long V of geese flies low overhead, and I stop in the road to admire them.

Each spring and fall they pass near here, doing what their species has done for aeons, making our human struggles seem petty and small. They don't know about wars or stock market crashes or union struggles. The geese give me hope, fill up my heart.

I step down hard on the bike's pedals and push on, but the wind blows in strong gusts, and twice I waver and almost fall off. A horse would be nice, I think, but there's no way I could afford one, and a vehicle like Mr. Hester's is unthinkable.

The whole way into Liberty no one passes, except one big truck from MacIntosh Consolidated that almost runs me off the road. When I finally arrive at the three-story brick house, I stop to catch my breath and straighten my hair. Holly bushes with red berries grow along the drive, with a few last red roses up the porch rails. I park my bike to the side and knock on the back door like a delivery boy. I know this isn't right. I should enter through the front, as Dr. Blum would do. A midwife is a professional, isn't she?

“Well, come on in,” Mary Proudfoot, the big coffee-colored cook, greets me, a white scarf tied behind her head, covering her neatly braided hair. “Bye Bye Blackbird” by Gene Austin is floating out of the radio in the dining room
. “Pack up all my care and woe, here I go, singing low. Bye bye blackbird.”
I grin when she pulls me close to her bosom, a soft pillow. I'm underendowed myself.

“Miss Patience,” Bitsy greets me without enthusiasm, looking down and away as she carries a load of laundry through the kitchen and out to the side yard.

“Sorry I've not been back sooner . . .” I trail off. “Is Mrs. MacIntosh doing all right?”

“Oh, she's right as rain, honey. Bitsy and I know about newborns. The missus is upstairs nursing . . . Speaking of Bitsy, she'd make a good midwife assistant, don't you think? Didn't she do right good at the delivery?” The cook pours me a cup of black coffee without even asking and pulls out two wooden kitchen chairs, indicating I should sit.

I'm taken aback by her comment about her daughter, but Mary allows the thought to sit on the back burner and rambles on.

“It's the mister I'm worried about. Talk about your care and woes.” She leans forward, glancing first at the door to the dining room. “He's wearing his tail to a frazzle! Says he's lost all he's worth, except this house and the coal mines. Everyone in town is holding on by a thread. No one can believe it's happening. The banks are tied in knots, and all because of that President Herbert Hoover. Worthless!

“I don't even think the mister told Miss Katherine that Bitsy has to move out. They can't afford her. Mr. MacIntosh says they don't need a maid, the missus and I can manage. I told him Bitsy would work just for keep, no cash pay, but he says no. She'd still require food. Things are that tight.

“I asked him what she's supposed to do . . . The few people that used to have servants in Liberty are letting theirs go too. I'm just glad I've been here so long and Katherine has the new baby. They can't let me go; I practically raised William, used to work for his parents. If he put me out they'd turn over in their graves.”

She stands and stirs a fragrant chicken broth on the stove. “The mister told me not to bother Katherine about Bitsy! He doesn't want his wife upset. Might lose her milk, he says, but I don't know what Bitsy's supposed to do . . . where she can go . . .” There are tears in her brown eyes, not falling yet, just resting in a pool below her lower lid. “Our closest kin are in North Carolina.”

Outside the tall twelve-pane kitchen window, I study Bitsy as she struggles with the wet sheets in the wind. She's a small woman, about my size, half as big as her mother, but she seems tough, like the little blueberry bushes that grow on the granite rocks at the top of the ridge.

“Mary, I'd help you if I could, but I'm broke too.”

“Thomas was at your house. He says it looks like you have extra rooms. I've studied it out. Bitsy could learn to help you with the deliveries and on the farm. She'd work for room and board. No salary. My daughter is thrifty and smart. She'd be company for you out there in the sticks. You'd like her.”

I can't believe this conversation is happening. Sometimes it would be nice to have another person around. Mrs. Kelly and I lived quite comfortably together in our little white house before she had her heart attack, but Bitsy and I together, a black and a white? I don't really care what people think, but I can't afford to bring attention to myself. I've just met Bitsy, and I've never known a white woman to live with a colored before, unless she was a servant.

“She has one week to move out of here.”

“You know, Mary, I don't have electricity or gas or a telephone or a car. It would be a tougher life than Bitsy is used to. Has she ever lived in the country?”

“Sure. We stayed with my pa near Fancy Gap in the mountains of North Carolina when she was a girl. That was before we moved to West Virginia so my husband could work in the mines. Mr. Proudfoot, Bitsy's pa, was killed in the Switchback Mine explosion along with sixty other men. By that time my daddy had passed on and lost his farm, and there was no place for us in Fancy Gap. The children and I moved north with the MacIntosh family when they opened their new mines in Union County.” She says all this without a trace of self-pity.

“Bitsy knows how to kill and dress deer. She can fish. She could clean and do laundry for you so that you'd have more time. My daughter graduated from the colored high school in Delmont. She can read, even big books, and she's as hard as cowhide if she needs to be.” The cook is as relentless as a Fuller brush salesman.

“Is that the baby crying?” I grab my satchel and make a hasty escape up the back stairs. At the landing, I slow and give the prospect some thought. Bitsy's moving in with me could be a gift or could mean the demise of my peaceful hermitage. I picture the two of us curled at the opposite ends of the sofa, reading in the evenings, as Mrs. Kelly and I once did. Would Bitsy squirm? Would she talk too much or sing under her breath? Does she snore or click her teeth when she eats? Would I have enough food? Those are the little things that concern me.

I let out my air, wondering how the community would feel about us. I couldn't call her my servant, and I couldn't stand someone waiting on me. It riles me even to think of it!

 

Crescent Moon

“Katherine? It's Patience,” I call softly from the upstairs hall. “I came to check on you and the baby.” The bedroom door is half open, and I see the woman pull her shift over her breast and stand up. “I'm sorry it's taken so long to get back,” I apologize. “Mary says you're both doing fine.” I note that the baby is asleep in his cradle, nursing his little tongue.

“Oh, Patience. I've missed you.” Katherine plunks down on the edge of the bed, and by her action, I see that her bottom doesn't hurt anymore, but things are not as hunky-dory as Mary implied.

“Are you okay?”

Dried milk is caked on the woman's lavender chemise, her hair is uncombed, and her pale face, without makeup, looks lined and tired.

“Yes . . . oh, I guess so . . . no, not really. I just feel so rotten about Bitsy.”

That takes me aback. “I thought you didn't know about that—about her having to leave and Mr. MacIntosh's financial problems.”

“I know more than he thinks! William treats me like a child. I can hear the news on the radio, for heaven's sake. I can put two and two together.

“The day the baby came I was so distraught I didn't realize what they meant by Black Tuesday, but since then there's been a string of men in and out of the house, bankers, creditors, investors, people like that. I hear their raised voices. I hear their fear.

“Then Martha Stenger came over to see the baby, the pharmacist's wife, with her six wild children. I thought they'd never leave. The kids were squirming all over, and the two littlest boys got in a fight!” She rolls her eyes.

Here I see a sly smile, and I remember why I like Katherine. Despite her sweet face and gentle feminine demeanor, there's a little piss in her vinegar.

“I know what you mean. They're a rowdy brood, bright but so noisy.”

“Martha Stenger told me that Mary Proudfoot has been asking everyone in town if they'll hire Bitsy. I was so angry when I found out William fired her! I would have confronted him if it wouldn't have meant a big fight. He has so many other worries. Has to make payroll for his miners this week. I just feel so bad. I don't have any money for
you
either, after all you did.”

I'd felt this might happen, yet still I'm disappointed. The MacIntosh family could at least offer
something.
I try to let Katherine off easy. “That's okay. I know you'll get to it when your finances are better.” (She should know about my finances! A flimsy two-dollar bill is all that stands between the poorhouse and me.)

I change the subject. “Mary told me about Bitsy just now in the kitchen. She asked if I would take her in, maybe train her to be my birth assistant, but I don't have any extra money and don't really need help.”

“Oh, would you, Patience?
Could
you? I'd feel so much better if she was with you.” Katherine stands, rocks the cradle with her foot, then floats to the window.

Why are some women so graceful? Is it learned from their mother or something they're born with? I compare myself to my patient. Today I wore my second-best dress, the dark blue one with the little white dots with a white apron over it. One strand of my long hair has caught on my glasses, and I smooth it back.

Even in the wrinkled, breast-milk-stained gown, Katherine looks like a queen, moves like a dancer. She holds the heavy curtain to one side and stares out the window to where the tops of the trees whip in the wind.

“Did you see the snowball bushes? Mr. MacIntosh planted them last year. The roses too.” (She calls her husband “Mr.,” as many of the older women do.) “He started the roses when we first moved here.”

“They're beautiful,” I confirm. Then she turns to face me.

“Look, Patience . . . times are going to get worse. You need to be realistic. A girl to work on the farm would be helpful. We'll all have to put in vegetable gardens and do things we aren't used to.”

I smile to myself. Having a garden won't be that different for me. I learned how to cultivate from Mrs. Kelly and from trial and error. Though Katherine has a point; I may have to enlarge the plot and preserve more food.

“Also, it doesn't look right you living alone. People talk. And it's not safe. What if something happened to you?”

“Nothing's going to happen. I've lived alone for more than a year. Anyway, what do you mean, talk about me?”

“William heard them at the Oneida Inn when he had his Elks meeting.” The Oneida Inn, twenty miles away, is a restaurant and hotel that's far too rich for me, and there's a speakeasy in the back. Not that I've ever been there.

“What do they say? What
could
they say? I live a good, clean life.”

“People just talk. They wonder about you. A single woman living all by herself on the side of a mountain. You must admit it's unusual. If Bitsy lived with you, it would seem more proper.”

“You don't think it would cause more gossip? A black and a white woman living together?”

“Well, she'd be your servant, right? Your maid.”

My maid!
I've been a maid myself in the past, a milkmaid with the Chicago Lying-in Dispensary. I've never had hired help, never had the money, and anyway, having someone wait on me makes my skin crawl.

“There's something else.” Katherine continues her pitch. “Bitsy could bring you some business.”

I frown, not sure what she means.

“Black babies,” Katherine whispers, her hand to her mouth as if this is hush-hush.

“What?”

“The Negro expectant mothers would start coming to you if Bitsy was your helper. The only midwife they've got now is Mrs. Potts, but she's over eighty and is slow getting around. Bitsy would bring you clients, and you'll need them now that Dr. Blum has dropped his fees and put a sign in his window, ‘New patients welcome.' ”