The Birth House (19 page)

31

The Ladies of the White Rose Temperance Society

Invite you to their spring tea

Sunday, March 3, 1918

At 2 p.m.

The Seaside Centre

Our special guest will be Archer Bigelow

Presenting the lecture

Electricity: A Woman’s Best Friend

W
E SET UP THE TINY
windmill at the Seaside Centre after church. I borrowed one of Aunt Fran’s tablecloths and some of Precious’s dolls and furniture to help make the presentation complete.

For all the troubles Archer had last year with his temper and drinking, one thing hasn’t changed: he can still turn any woman’s attention to anything he wants. Even with the windows wide open, the ladies never complained (not even his mother). They huddled around the dollhouse, their faces peeking into the brightened little rooms, their mouths open with wonder. Once the windows were shut and they were settled in their seats, Archer told them of his magnificent wind farm and the superiority of hens to roosters. It wasn’t long before they were clucking for more.

This is the time of year when spring is a tease in the air. The sun warms the ground, the snowdrops have appeared, but as soon as two people start talking about blue skies and planting peas, it begins to snow and there’s another inch or two of “poor man’s fertilizer” covering the ground. Archer had every head nodding in agreement when he proclaimed that this year’s winter must be the longest on record. “Some cold, too, I’d say.” He walked over and took his mother’s hands in his own. “Cold hands, warm heart—they must have been thinking of dear ladies like you when they came up with that phrase.” Even Aunt Fran blushed at that.

He opened the pages of a Sears catalogue and pointed to the large black lettering across the top of the page.

“Electricity can do more for the women of the Bay than just getting your hens to lay eggs.” He smiled and asked the women, “How many times have you wished for more hours in a day? Or dreamed of having an extra pair of hands?” He snapped his fingers. “If you had electricity, you might just feel as if those wishes had come true.” He passed the catalogue to my mother and me. “Look at that page and tell me there isn’t one thing there that wouldn’t make your life easier.”

“I promise you, if you support this venture, I’ll deliver electricity straight to each and every one of your doorsteps before the days turn short and the nights turn cold.”

By morning the porch was crowded with pickle jars, filled to the rim with coins. After breakfast, Archer carefully packed his miniature wind farm in an old steamer trunk, taking great care to make certain that every bit of it was padded and safe. He said he was off to put all the money in the bank in Kentville—the money from his mother and the money from the ladies. Then he’d be off to Halifax to seek out investors. “I need real money, city money, to make this work.”

“You have to leave today?”

“I can’t wait around any more to get this thing started, and I certainly wouldn’t want people to think I can’t provide for my dear little wife. You don’t want women to start coming here to have their babies in our parlour, giving us cabbages and beans because they feel sorry for you. Do you?” He kissed me and gave a firm pinch to my bum. “Anyway, if I wait around for you to decide that you want me to go, I’ll never get out of here.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Can’t say. But if I don’t get going…”

I felt the tears coming to my eyes. “I think I might be—”

He ignored my sadness, giving me a broad smile as he went through the door. “Now don’t make me worry over you, Dora. That’s what selfish girls do, and I never guessed you to be like that.”

April 15, 1918

Bleeding today. No baby, again.

Archer’s been gone over a month, the war is still on, and it feels like darkness is winning at everything. By all reports, March 1918 was taken by the Germans. Many soldiers captured, many more killed.

Mother has heard from Albert and Borden. They are fine. I do wonder about poor Tom Ketch, wherever he may be. He never sent word after I wrote to him. It seems so long ago.

I did get a package from Charlie in today’s post and there
is
(as I suspected) a girl involved in his move to Boston (or woman, I should say, from the photo he sent). Her name is Maxine Cabott, and she’s as beautiful and sophisticated a thing as I’ve ever seen. Charlie is standing next to her, grinning like the cat that came in with a mouse in his teeth. Although he claims he’s in her employ, it looks to be much more than that.

He even sent me a book of poetry by Emily Dickinson…his thoughtfulness makes me wonder if he isn’t in love!

I hope you like this little book of poems I’ve sent along to you. It was Max’s idea. I told her how much you love to have your nose stuck between the pages, and she said, “She’d probably prefer something racier, like Balzac or Lawrence, but some postal clerk would confiscate it in the name of Comstockery and virtue, and then where would we be? Send my regrets. Miss Dickinson will have to do for now.”

32

T
HE PINK MOON
, April’s moon, pulls the green of the earth right up from the roots. The pink moon, the Lady moon, gives wide silver rings to the sky, her sudden, bright face coming over the spruce, singing,
Three days of rain, day and night. Three days of rain and unexpected houseguests.

Precious came down for supper. I fixed boiled ham with potatoes, cabbage and carrots. Had to keep a fire in the kitchen at night, just to hold the chill off. After dinner, we sat at the table, dunking brown bread in thick cream and maple syrup. Sucking at the tips of her fingers like a child, Precious begged to have her tea leaves read. “Please, Dora, I won’t tell my mum. I won’t tell a soul.”

At fifteen, she’s in a sweet and terrible spot. On Easter Monday, Sam Gower went off to war. He’s decided to “do his part.” For her part, Precious has promised to write, to place his letters under her pillow and to keep his mother company until he returns. It’s nothing short of painful to watch her give her heart away for the first time. We are all standing guard, Aunt Fran, Uncle Irwin, Mrs. Gower, Reverend Pineo, everyone who knows and loves her. There is something in her waiting, in her sad patience, that warns us, “If this girl’s heart should happen to break, the whole world will be broken along with it.”

“Watch carefully now…I hold the cup in my left hand, left is closest to the heart, see? Turn it over and let the last drops drip out past the handle.” Precious was watching, squirming in her seat with anticipation. “Upright the cup and place the saucer over top. Then, fast as you can, turn it the other way around so now the cup is on top.”

“Now, Dora? Can we look now?”

“Shh…No, now we wait.” I placed my hands piously on the cup, slowly turning it, just as Miss B. had always done.
One, two, three times ’round the clock.
“Always pick it up with the left hand, always the left.”

She peered between her fingers as she held her hands over her face. “I’m afraid to look, Dora, is it any good?”

“I can see…a hand. Someone you know will need your helping hands. Be sure you give them your assistance, and good luck will come back to you.”

Precious sighed with disappointment. “I always help others, that’s easy enough. Isn’t there anything else in there?”

“Wait…oh yes, a ribbon and an ear. Someone thinks highly of you, and soon you will get news from far away.”

Precious smiled and closed her eyes. She whispered, “Sam.”

“Maybe so.”

“I think I should marry Sam when he comes home.”

“I think you’re too young to think about getting married off.”

“But you were only eighteen when you married Archer. That’s not so different.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Why not?”

“When you come from a house with six brothers and no money to speak of, a marriage proposal is a gift, not a choice. Count your blessings, dear cousin. You’re an only child from a well-to-do family. You have plenty of time to decide who you’ll marry.”

Precious retied the ribbon at the end of her braid. “Aren’t you anxious for Archer to come home? Don’t you love him like mad? Don’t you wish he were here?”

“Wishing doesn’t make it so, and no matter how badly you try to help her along, Love always makes it plain that she can take care of herself. Here, let’s clear the table.”

She sat pouting, with her hands folded in her lap. “Not until we look in your cup too.”

“Oh, alright.” I turned the cup, not looking to find anything important.
One, two, three times ’round the clock. Then with the left, always the left, it’s closest to the heart. There, see?
“Blackbird flying. Two hands shaking. A treasure box.”

Before I finished, we heard horses and voices in the dooryard. Too late for Hart to come by, too soon for Archer to be home. I tried to hide my worry from Precious as I opened the door.

A man was pushing a young girl ahead of him, their bodies moving together, then apart. It was difficult to judge if it was fear or illness that was causing their cumbersome gait. The man called out, “You Judah Rare’s girl, right? Oh—I should say, Mrs. Archie Bigelow…” Brady Ketch’s speech was crippled by drunkenness, his clothing and face soiled.

“Yes, but—”

“Here ya go, My Wild Iris Rosie…Mrs. Bigelow’ll know what to do with you.” He shoved the girl up the steps and through the door, causing her to fall into my arms, whimpering. “Take her.”

“If she’s sick, you need to take her to Dr. Thomas. I can’t help her.”

“This little bitch? She’ll cost more to keep than she’s good for. No amount of money’s worth the trouble she’s caused.”

The ragged wool scarf on her head fell down around her neck, showing that her tender face was bruised over one eye, that the corner of her mouth was swollen with blood. I put my arm around her to steady her. “Did he do this to you?”

He began to make his way back to a dilapidated wagon on skids, pulled by a mismatched team of horses. “Damn right I give her that. Fix her or kill her, I don’t care.”

I called after him, but he was already on his seat, whipping his team, his senseless muttering turned into song as the rig lurched down the road.

We were so happy ’til father drank rum

Then all our sorrows and troubles begun…

The girl’s body slumped heavy against mine. She was crying now, moaning with pain. Precious stood behind me, staring, waiting. “Set the rocker by the stove in the kitchen. Let’s see if we can get her to sit up,” I said.

Precious moved quickly, her hands shaking as she dragged Miss B.’s heavy oak chair across the floor. “What’s wrong with her?”

“I’m not sure yet. Here, help me get these wraps off of her.”

A jumble of patchwork pieces, coat remnants and old blankets surrounded her sobbing, frightened body. “Can you tell me what’s the matter, dear?” I whispered gently, hoping to coax her into telling me what had happened. She bent her head into her chest and clutched her arms around her belly. The weeping became a long, tortured wail. I slipped my hand under the remaining blankets. Her middle was tense, knotted with contractions. Precious stood near, whispering in my ear.

“I know this girl. Iris Rose Ketch. She lives on the mountain. Mother says her father hires her out, sells her body, for money.”

How long had it been since I’d seen her tired, little-girl face worrying over her mother at Deer Glen? A year? No, more than that. It was autumn, my first birth with Miss B., when I’d seen those same wide eyes, watching through a crooked staircase, waiting for a miracle. This child, who’d been set aside by a mother who was always short on food, clothing and love, wasn’t long from becoming a mother herself.

I knelt at her feet. “You’re safe here, Iris Rose. I’ll take care of you now.”

Frightened and breathless, Precious was quick to offer to fetch Aunt Fran. “Please, Dora. I’ll bring her right back. Let me go get my mum.”

There’s been talk going around the circle of card-party girls of a “midwife curse,” or a witch’s mark that’s been passed from Miss B. to me. According to this tale, I can blame the curse for driving my husband away and leaving me barren. Any girl who is unmarried is liable to “catch it” if she drinks my tea, walks through my door, sits at my kitchen table, sits next to me at church, touches wool that I’ve spun, eats food I’ve prepared and so on. On other occasions, Precious and I have laughed over the thought of it, settling on the idea that she was free from the curse by virtue of loving me. Now she was looking as if she wanted to run out the door, as if witnessing a birth by my side was the one thing that might do her in.
The longer words spill around, gettin’ caught between knittin’ needles or clothespins, the easier it is to believe them, even when you know you shouldn’t.

“I’ll go get Mother. She’ll know what to do.”

“No, Precious. I need you to stay here. I’ll open the doors to the bedroom off the kitchen and get it warmed up in there. You run upstairs and get a dressing gown from my wardrobe and as many sheets as you can carry out of the linen closet.” Iris Rose sat trembling in the rocking chair. I took her hand in mine. “You’re in the eye of the storm, dear; try to relax when you can—we have some work ahead of us.”

I dressed her in a clean, white gown and helped her onto the bed. Precious flitted around the kitchen, putting the kettle on for tea, tearing sheets into strips, lining a basket with lamb’s wool and flannel. Iris Rose fell in and out of a restless sleep, weary from the pain that took hold of her body every few minutes.

Scissors, needles, sewin’ cotton, crochet hooks, scorched muslin. Calendula salve, peroxide, cayenne, witch hazel bark, castor oil, ergot, Jayes Fluid, Stop Bleed, Mother’s Tea. Mandrake root—balm of the bruised woman. Stand with your back to the wind. Draw three circles, clockwise, around the plant with a knife. Douse it with Mary Water. Turn west to uproot.
Salve nos, Stella Maris.
Save us, Star of the Sea.

Iris Rose wailed as another wave of pain swept over her body.

“It’s almost time to bear down and bring your baby into the world. During the next calm, I’ll help you get on your knees.” I pulled a chair from the kitchen table. “We’ll put this chair in front of you so you’ll have something to hold on to…Precious, slide that quilt underneath her legs so it’s right soft when I catch the baby.”

The clock on the mantel in the parlour struck twelve times when we started. At two she was still struggling, practically faint from exhaustion. Soon, mother and child would be in danger. “Precious, get me the crow’s wing from over the door, then fetch the cayenne pepper off the table.”

Quilling was something Miss B. had told me about but I had never witnessed, let alone practised. She said she learned it from what was left of the Chitimacha Indians who lived near the Atchafalaya Swamp.
Her face will done turn red and hot, and she’ll think her head’s on fire, but when she lets it go, she lets the babe go too. Sometime it’s the only way. Porcépic quills is best, but crow or even a gull’s feather’ll do.

Precious watched as I pulled a feather from the wing and scraped the quill clean. I dipped the end of the quill into the pepper, its redness filling the hollow tip. I held the quill close to Iris Rose’s face, gently brushing her cheek as I explained, “Hold steady; as soon as we feel the next surge, I’m going to blow. This should do the trick.”

She was too weak to respond. Her fingernails clawed into the ladder of the chair, anticipating her pain. With a shot of breath the pepper flew through the quill and into her nose. Her eyes widened as her face turned scarlet. A violent episode of sneezing caused her body to thrust and heave, her voice wailing with tears and half-words.
Cryin’ like she’d got the Lord, like a repentant, glory-be soul bringin’ the Spirit straight down from heaven,
Iris Rose delivered her baby into my waiting hands.

Time of birth, 2:30 a.m.

A baby girl.